A surfeit of information

is what I had today! I am in the process of applying for a Hearing Dog for the Deaf and as part of that I was invited to an “information day” at the centre in Buckinghamshire.

This was an opportunity for applicants to see what the charity is all about and to see how the dogs behave, where they are trained. And more importantly, I think, to hear what the staff have to say and what a current Hearing Dog owner thinks of having a dog.

The website for the charity doesn’t actually give travel directions – probably to ensure the safety of the dogs - so I had to rely on a map and a rough idea of where it was. So, the closer I got the more worried I was that I had missed it altogether when I suddenly saw a road sign that said “Hearing Dogs” – aha!!

We were given a demonstration of how the dog works for us – including how to tell us that the alarm clock has gone off….

One of the best bits (and there were many) was probably the talk given by Hearing Dog owner David (dog was called Mitchell) that really opened our eyes to the responsibilities and the joys of owning a Hearing Dog. The funniest thing that he said was that when he first had the dog he was approached by someone who asked what a Hearing Dog did and he was ever so tempted to say that first thing in the morning the dog goes and listens to the radio and then comes and tells me what the news is!!!

Anyway – we certainly had a lot of information to take in and I still had a dozen questions at the end of the whole process!! But at the end of the day I came away feeling that I definitely, positively, absolutely would like to have a Hearing Dog.

Cycling holidays

I can't remember whether or not I've already mentioned this, but in August Mum and I are off on a cycling holiday in Suffolk.

Naturally this has meant a great deal of preparation - making sure that my bike was fit for purpose, doing a few bike rides to get myself prepared and buying some panniers. (after a great deal of research and reading other people's reviews I eventually settled on Arkel - a Canadian firm that sell very robust panniers).

We've also done most of the travel preparation, i.e. booked the Bed and Breakfasts and roughly planned our route; although I still need to do a few more bike rides, but the weather has been putting me off lately!

Anyway, the main purpose of this particular post is to say that we were getting a bit worried that Mum wouldn't even have a bike to ride on! Clearly, the one requirement of a cycling holiday is that you have a bicycle!! Mum had applied to get some money through the bike to work scheme; only it was taking rather longer than expected to arrive.

The voucher finally arrived yesterday and so Mum went and got her bike and after a few hiccups with the saddle and the gears, took it out on a short ride today. Mum's first ride on her lovely new land rover bike (which is purple!) and what does she do? She falls off!! Would you believe that she was stationary too!!! (sorry Mum, this was too good to keep quiet!).

Mum tells me that she overbalanced a little and when she went to put her foot down the ground sloped away a little and so she just missed altogether and fell over! Ending up with a muddy brake lever and a bruised knee - sending kisses your way, but you really shouldn't fall off your bike!

Coming off the fence

I have been quite firmly on the fence a few months now about whether or not I should apply to get a Hearing Dog for the Deaf.  I put in my preliminary application but have been hanging on to the GP letter and Audiology letter that I need to forward on as I just wasn’t sure that this was the right thing for me.

You see, I do reasonably well without a Hearing Dog and although I would love to have a dog, I just wasn’t sure whether this would give me any real benefit.

Well…..today I am off the fence.  I want a Hearing Dog.  Why?  Because I was playing on my laptop whilst still thinking about whether to get up or not, and I had my buzzy alarm thing with me to alert me should the front doorbell go as I was expecting a parcel from Amazon. 

Yes, you’ve guessed it, the postman came and went and my alarm didn’t go off so now I have to wait until Monday to go and get my books from the post office.  I even dashed down the road to see if I could find the postman, but I don’t know which direction he went and I only saw the collection notice about ten minutes after it was posted through my letter box.

So, I shall now begin to push through the application process rather more whole heartedly and see whether the charity will consider me suitable for such a dog. Of course, if they decide that I am not suitable then that is a different matter, but I have now decided that a Hearing Dog could really help me as I wont have to keep one eye on the front door if I am expecting a visitor or miss any more vitally important book parcels.

Unusual sights

I simply could not believe my eyes on the way home from work today!  I don’t suppose I would have even spotted this if traffic hadn’t been heavy and slow moving as I would not have had time to properly look at the car in front of me.

Nevertheless, I had plenty to time to cast my eyes around and I saw this….

It probably isn’t all that clear as the photo was taken with my lovely new iphone (not to  mention through a rather dirty windscreen!), but if I hadn’t taken the photograph you would not, I mean NOT, have believed me (thank goodness for my new toy, eh!).

If you click on the photograph to embiggen (as several people seem to like saying!) you will see that there are two birds of prey in the car!  Yes, two birds of prey, both with hoods, one facing the back of the car and the other facing forwards.

Really, I had to look three or four times rather than the normal double-take to ensure that I wasn’t imagining things  It was quite amusing really – every time the driver braked a bit hard the birds would overbalance and have to get their wings out to straighten themselves up.

This is most definitely not a sight that you see everyday and I am quite sure that I will never ever see this car again – just pure fate that I happened to be behind this car in stationery traffic so that I had time to rub my eyes and then take a photo!!

feeding the cat

hmmm, did you know that if you wanted to look completely and utterly spinster-ish, all you have to do is say to someone that you don't mind staying in the library to help them for an extra 15 minutes because "there's only that cat that needs feeding at home".

I truly didn't mind staying to help, in fact, it seems to a particular trait of certain library users that they dash in just as you turn the computer off and they need to borrow a few books or need to find some information on the computer.

But, did I have to sound quite that twee! Surely there were more scintillating things I could have said such as..."no that's fine, the chauffeur can wait" or "yes, I'll help, but I really must go at 5:45 because I have a flight to Paris to catch" - anything, but anything instead of "the cat can wait".

Even now, I laugh and think - what possessed me to say something like that. Oh well, I can ignore that because I make up for it with extra coolness because I have a new phone!! And it's not just any phone of course, I have decided to splurge and get myself an iphone and I am already quite addicted! (ha ha, blogger's spellcheck does not like iphone!)

Another fat ankle!

The photo below shows a reasonably normal left ankle, in fact, this is the ankle that I wrecked a few months ago attempting to hop over a roadside barrier

This photograph shows a rather swollen right ankle that I tipped over on Friday.

It was all rather amusing really, I was wandering around the fields of Chysauster – an ancient settlement – when I was in amongst the grasses when my ankle twisted and I found myself sitting down and going “ow, ow, ow”! Fortunately there was no-one around to see my quick fall from grace although that did worry me slightly when I wondered how I was going to get back up again.

Still, no damage done, only the fact that I drove from Cornwall back up to Wiltshire via a stop at Lanhydrock where I walked around the rooms meant that the ankle ended up rather more swollen than necessary.

The ankle is not nearly so swollen today, I suppose I shouldn’t really have driven four hours just the day after I twisted it but there was nothing to be done seeing as I had to get myself home. It certainly isn’t as bad as the sprain I had on the left ankle a few months ago! Nevertheless, I could do without spraining either of my ankles for a while!! ;-)

resuscitated laptop

Well...it looks as though I have a working laptop again! Woohoo! Mind you, I have lost some photos and information that I had on the laptop, I am not so bothered about that as I had expected that to happen. (Fortunately my Dubai photos were still on my camera - surprisingly enough!)

The chap was very good and actually managed to find the root of the problem (instead of just wiping everything and reinstalling) and it would appear that I have a faulty memory card which he took out. That will need replacing at some point but at the moment the laptop functions with the remaining memory card so I am ok for the time being.

The fee was cheap so that was good, the only downside being that the laptop and bag came back rather smokey smelling! Clearly the chap is a smoker and while I am surprised by how little time it takes to make something smell of cigarette smoke, I am pleased to have a working laptop that I can overlook that.

Am still on holiday in beautiful Cornwall and am making very good use of my National Trust card and seeing some historic houses. I also managed to avoid getting burnt again although my original sun burn is now peeling - ewgh! (serves me right for not being careful - all I can say to you folk out there - slip, slap, slop - as they apparently say in Australia - slip on a t-short, slap on a hat and slop on some suncream!)

Pink!

I would appear to be rather pink today - whoops! The sun was obviously stronger than I thought yesterday, so I am a bit sore and kicking myself for not putting some suncream on. You can be sure that I have put some on today.

I had a good day yesterday as I walked along the coastal path from Penzance to Marazion, it's not that far and it has a lovely view of the bay with St. Michael's Mount out in the middle. Marazion is a lovely little town with several crafty shops and galleries, all ready to lure the tourists in!!

When it is low tide you can actually walk across the causeway from Marazion to St. Michael's Mount, but the tide was still going out when I got there. There are several boats that ferry people across to the Mount when the causeway is closed, so I hopped on board on of those and was on the island in about ten minutes (if that!) and spent a few hours exploring the house on top of St. Michael's Mount - it's quite an impressive house, my only wish is that I would have liked to have seen it as it was 50, 100 and 150 years ago. If only there was a little window in each room that would allow you look back and see everything exactly as it was.

By the time I had finished looking around, the tide was out and so I was able to walk back along the causeway to Marazion and then walk along the beach back to Penzance. The day ended with me sitting on a bench on the promenade eating sausage and chips - a perfect way to end a perfect day. (although I could have done without the sunburn!)

injured laptop

No sooner do I try and get back into the habit of blogging, my laptop decides to give up the ghost!!

 

It is a seriously ill laptop unfortunately and keeps crashing when I try to reboot and I get some nasty error messages.  As I know next to nothing about the inner workings of my laptop and it is out of warranty now as I have had it for about fifteen months I have to take it to somebody that knows more than me!!

 

That's only half the story too....tomorrow I am off to foreign parts (Cornwall!!) and I still have to finish an essay so I NEED my laptop to be in working order. I really was quite panicked last night until I remembered that pen and paper would do in a pinch until I can type the essay up.

 

Anyway, it turns out that there is a computer engineer that works from home in Penzance and that home just happens to be in the road where my B&B is - fortuitous eh?  What was even more pleasant was that when we phoned him to see if he could see my ailing laptop he said that he'd come to the B&B and pick up the laptop - sounds like good service to me.  So, I am really hoping that he can breath life into my beloved laptop and ensure that I don't fail this course at the same time!!  ;-)

 

 

Cycling

I seem to be taking this cycling lark rather seriously!  I have now cycled to work (and back of course) four times, although I should admit that this is four days across nearly two weeks - I don't want to wear myself out too soon do I?

 

It's just over nine miles from my back door to the bike sheds at work, so in one day I really do get my quota of exercise by cycling for about two hours and covering eighteen miles.  The journey itself is a mixture of bike paths and major roads.  The worse bit is the first section (or last should I be on the way home!) where the traffic really is quite heavy - cars on their way to work, lorries and buses - so it's not altogether pleasant, but as I am wearing a hi-vis vest I hope I am quite easy to spot; and most drivers do give me a reasonably wide berth, I just get the odd one or two every now and then that seems to think that an inch or two is sufficient space!!

 

The majority of the route, though, is on bike paths or smaller country lanes.  The longest section is probably the old railway line that has been tarmacked and is one of the major Sustrans (bike group) routes and it very leafy and green and pleasant to cycle along.  However, on the way to work this route is ever so slightly uphill - you'd have to be an engineer (or cyclist!) to see the gradient, but as trains generally avoid hills this old route takes a very long way to get uphill so the journey to work is a bit huffy and puffy with my legs aching a bit.  The journey home.....is a different thing altogether.....I whizz down that path keeping an eye out for dog walkers!

 

I cycled into work today and although the weather forecast is for rain it seems to have held off for now, so the trip home tonight should be pleasant - sometimes I see squirrels, but I have yet to see another owl.  I was taking a circular route one evening a few weeks ago when this owl flew over my head carrying some food for it's owlets!!

 

Commuting to work by bike is fun, but it's not all you can do - Mum and I are going on a touring holiday in Suffolk in August - see, I told you I was taking this cycling lark a bit too seriously!!! ;-)