Journeys and Misadventures

Not a great deal to be honest. Having a young family doesn’t leave much spare time for reading - at least not when you want to spend some non-child time with your partner after the kids are in bed. Most of my fiction needs these days are met by audio dramas on podcast. More on those in another post.

I’ve also developed a habit of starting books, putting them to one side and starting another one. I’m currently partway through:
Gaiman’s Ocean at the End Of Of the Lane
Black Howl, the third in the Black Wings series - at least I finished the first two. Penny recommended these having read the books which are a take on Alice.
Norman Davies’ Vanished Kingdoms, which being a history of such places lends itself to a chapter at a time
Chuck Wending’s Wanderers, which I started just as the pandemic hit and found was a little too close to real-life events.
David Gerrold’s The Man Who Folded Himself, which I picked up last week after seeing it mentioned by him on Facebook and I remember being very good when I read it in my teens. Only a few pages in to this one.
Scott Westerfield’s Leviathan, recommended by Lise Frascalossi and Matt Le Van. Alternate history Austria-Hungary near the start of World War One, with mechanics. I’ve read one chapter and will come back to, as it's an intriguing set up.


What I have finished (other than Black Wings and Black Night which are pulp easy reading).

The latest in the Rivers of London series, False Value, is reasonable, but suffers a bit from being the book after the conclusion of the Faceless Man arc. Aaronovitch is either filling, or doing a pile of setting up. The good bits are very good, particularly the description of Beverley Brook holding Court, but I think I’d rather be finding out more about the German characters introduced in The October Man.

Jeeves and the King Of Clubs was also recommended by Lise and Matt. By Ben Schott, he of the miscellany (which is drawn on), it’s billed as an homage and largely succeeds. The language, the characterisation and some of the farce are hard to tell apart from the originals. The plotting is good, not least the explanation of the Diogenes Clubs real purpose, but the book ends with two or three loose ends. Plum was always meticulous about tying everything up. This just seems to stop as if it’s run out of steam.

On the day that doctors below the level of consultant have felt forced to take strike action, here's the very personal reason why I think the NHS is worth keeping and their action is worth supporting. Some of you already know part of this story and/or have seen the scars on my left leg and hip. For those that don't:

When I was twelve, I fell very ill. I contracted ostio myelitis. This is basically an abscess in your bone marrow.  At the same time I got septicemia - blood poisoning.  Dr Wilner, our GP paid us a home visit, made the diagnosis and had me admitted straight to hospital.  Mr Lalljee, the consultant, operated on my hip along with two "Junior" doctors, Dr Gunaratne being one of them. This should have sorted out the myelitis. Unfortunately the blood poisoning caused liver failure and I ended up in ITU for nearly a week.  At one point during this stay, my Mum was told it was 50/50 whether I'd survive.  When I was well enough to be out of the ITU (liver failure recovered from and septicemia cleared up, an assessment showed that I still had the myelitis.  Cue a second operation on both hip and leg - apparently the medical notes referred to use of a Black & Decker.  Five more weeks in hospital recovering were followed by several months in a leg brace while the bones healed and follow up appointments for another three or four years.

All this was forty years ago now.  The NHS, those doctors and their back-up staff undoubtedly saved my life.  I wouldn't be here without them.

I'm incredibly proud that my home town so cared for its hospital that it elected one of their doctors as an independent MP for several years.  I wish Richard Taylor was still in parliament, to speak truth to power on these matters.

I have come across little in life so far that is quite as wonderful as having my daughter fall asleep on me. Apart from perhaps the broad smile and giggle that she (sometimes) greets me with when I get home.

We had a pretty quiet weekend, in all. Penny bought me Dominion for my birthday last week (along with the new Prof Layton). We've played a few times on Monday nights with M&H, but only with the initial recommended set-up, so we tried it to see how two-player works and then looked at a couple of the alternative set-ups. I'm enjoying it, but so far I'm getting creamed. A few other games also played on Saturday to take Pen's mind of being uncomfortable. She reasserted her reign as Queen of San Juan, but I won a couple of others.

General baking continues - by both of us, with a complete failure at bread-making by me as I misread the scales and only put in half the flour needed to make olive oil and rosemary bread. First attempt is now in the garden for the birds. Second attempt went much better.

Most of Sunday was spent watching the Daytona 24 hour race on Motors. We'd watched the start before bed on Saturday and I then flicked it on to find out what was happening with 6 hours to go and got hooked. It stayed on to the end (often in the background while we did other things), but this was a cracking race. Very close all the way between the top three prototypes and the top 4/5 GT cars. I do feel sorry for Alan McNish who drove two or three superb stints and was in the end let down by one of his co-drivers having a brief off-track excursion which damaged the rear aero and lost a little off the top-speed. Without that a 6-second loss would almost certainly have been a win.

No news is no news on the baby front. One or other (or both) set of parents are ringing pretty much every day now. Nice that they're concerned for and care about us, but it can be a little wearing at times. The theory that the bump would follow her Mum and Aunt (both two weeks early) has failed. Back in work and braced for phone call at any time.

Lovely letter in the Graudina today:

• If Sherlock can survive a rooftop fall, does this mean there is hope for Nigel?

Those of us involved in education have known this fact for some while.

The rest of the world will be coming to that realisation very quickly on hearing of his proposal to give the Queen a £60m+ yacht for the jubilee this year. I'm also not surprised that Willetts, his co-conspirator in damaging education for a generation is co-conspirator in this as well.

That £60m by the way was the estimate of Britannia's value when de-commissioned 15 years ago.

We've watched Sky's adaptation of Treasure Island over past couple of nights (24 hours behind broadcast both times). Kudos to the channel for starting to produce some of its own drama rather than relying on bought in fare all the time.

On the whole, not a bad take on the book. Izzard was definitely better than I expected as Silver and there was mostly good backing, including sterling performances from Penry Jones and Glenister as Trelawney and Smollett. Not a trace of hobbitry about Elijah Wood as Ben Gunn either. Weakest for me was young Toby Regbo as Jim Hawkins. I felt a little niggled that Trelawney was portrayed as such a money-grubbing bastard and Dr Livesey as a coward. I don't remember either characterisation from the book. What mostly rankled though was the twist on the ending. It just doesn't gel with what's gone before either that Jim would throw all the treasure overboard or that the rest of the characters (particularly Silver) would let him.

mr_malk asked me some questions, viz

"Is Warks/Worcs a tradtional rivallry or your own private prejudice? (Or are you [Heaven forfend!] a closet Lancashire supporter?!)"

W/W is indeed a traditional rivalry. I think some Worcs folks would prefer a Glos rivalry, but they're too busy with Somerset.

As for Lancashire, did I not mention the ancestral connection? My father's from Ormskirk way and we have census records from 1821 onwards of the family farming on the same patch of land at Melton.

We had a midwife appointment last Friday afternoon. Penny wasn't looking forward to it as she'd not exactly hit it off with the lady at the first appointment. As it happens that one was on leave, so we got somebody else. She was absolutely lovely and when Pen mentioned her uneasiness about the first one suggested we go to the drop-in centre near us for the next appointment and see if we get on better with the lady there.

All samples are showing good results. Mum-to-be and baby were both pronounced healthy and we got to hear a nice strong heartbeat. Better, probably as a result of being prodded with the heartbeat monitor, the baby decided to make its presence felt to Penny, so she's now happy she can feel it moving.

Next up, second scan on 27th Sept; consultant appointment on 7th October and next midwife appointment to be made towards the end of October.

Things Done:

Hotel booked for queenortart's and fractalgeek's bash (Sat/Sun)

Our bedroom shifted about and wall painted (1829 range, Burgundy Leather)

Cats booked in for annual jabbing

Account with Lloyds closed - what a palaver. Passed from one operative who took all the details to another - without being told that was happening. Then told he could only close the current account (and that's by sending out a set of forms to fill in and return) and I'd have to write to the branch or go in personally to close the savings and also have to deal separately with the credit card.

NCT ante-natal course booked. Yes, we're now fully public.

Things still to sort out:

Returning paperwork to Lloyds to get rid of them.

Find the least worst week to take as leave between now and mid-October (if I don't I'll collapse by Christmas)

Pay for ante-natal course

Shift bedroom back to normal

Shift about guest bedroom, paint wall (suede range) and put room back - sifting a pile of stuff to pass on to charity shops/recycling

Buy shed and move some stuff from downstairs front room in house out to it

Shift computer and bookcases from middle front room to make downstairs front room a study

Make middle front room into nursery.