Oh Canada Scratch yer Bum

As the boys left for school this morning, I waved them off with a "by the time you are home, I will be able to hear!".

First day for shorts

Drew rang me to ask if I wanted to go out with her this morning but I explained (or maybe I shouted, who knows?) that I had a doctors appointment. Shame, I could have done with some company today. I slowly got myself ready and drove to our Doctors which is about 30 minutes away. I was too early so I popped into the Post Office and posted a belated present and two letters. I got to the doctors with minutes to spare but then had to sit and wait for an extra half an hour before I was ushered into a very small office. The waiting room was very noisy and if you have ever had problems with your hearing you will know how frustrating it is to have too many loud noises all going on at the same time. It gave me a headache!

Now I am used to our small English Village Doctors, where each doctor has their own office, with some personality, maybe a photo or a painting. Our doctors here just seems to have a lot of little rooms each with a bed, desk, chair and a computer, I was there to have my ears syringed and there was no sink, no ear syringing machine, so when the Doctor finally came in he had to go in and out of the office to fetch more water, towels and empty the contents of what came out of my ears (sorry should have said, don't eat whilst reading!). He talked to me throughout the whole ordeal with his back to me, I was deaf which is why I was there, and I felt he had no compassion, sympathy or was bothered in the slightest. One ear is nearly clear and the other as stuffed as before. He said to carry on using the drops and come back maybe late next week. WHAT? I made another appointment but for Wednesday, there was no way I was going to wait until Friday!!! While I was in there, I asked him if he thought a bite I had on my arm was infected. It had weeped, was hard and swollen and very hot. He snapped at me to stop touching it, saying I was making the area red. He said it could be but didn't seem to care much. He said it could be the venom. I asked him if he thought it was a mosquito and he said "yes, maybe, or something like". GREAT, thanks then! I wanted to punch him.

I made a new appointment and went and got my contraceptive pills for which the Doctor gave me a prescription without asking me if I was happy on them or even checking my blood pressure. The pharmacist dealt with everyone's else prescription before me, or so I felt, as the chairs around me emptied and filled several times before I was called. When I saw the packet, I said "oh they are not the ones I have". "We just give you generic ones, that's what we do". OH RIGHT!

I left almost in tears, I was so fed up. I had been desperate to hear again properly and so far my day was pants! I went to a supermarket to buy fresh fruit and I kept bumping into the same woman in every aisle. As she was coming down, I was going up. She was on her phone and kept hogging the whole aisle. A few times I moved to one side to let her pass. Not once did she acknowledge me or say thank you. After the fourth or fifth time, I looked at her and said 'you are just bloody rude!" And stomped off. Ha, I felt much better. I paid for my stuff while Grandad was texting me to tell me there was not a blog for yesterday. I promised to look into it when I got home.

My journey home was uneventful but I felt sad and missed my friends, especially those that I can just pop round to for coffee and a chat and a moan about rude people. I got home, unpacked the shopping, made myself lunch and then Grandma and Grandad skyped me. Grandma is still suffering with jet lag. It wasn't long before Grandad's silly slobber made me feel better. I decided to get out into the garden and plant the raspberries. I put on my cut offs (it was very very warm today) and a vest and wheeled the barrow down to the bottom of the garden to the sunny spot Grandad had found for us. Mrs Nosey shouted "Hey Faaamfa what yer diggin' up eh?". At first I didn't know where the shout was from, then went over to talk to her. She said "yer gettin' sunburnt". NO IM NOT. "Yes yer are, I can see it". NO IM REALLY NOT. "Yer are". Now let me explain....... I have very funny skin. When I get warm (even in the winter) my skin on the top of my arms and my chest goes red. It is just the blood coming to the surface which means my blood is circulating well there. However, every new person I meet (and some people that forget) tell me I am getting sunburnt when I know I am not. In this case, today, I had only just stepped out of the door. I had factor 50 on and had only just walked from the house to the barn and down the bottom of the garden. I have fair skin but not that fair. I wish I had a comeback that would just shut people up. I know most of them are not being unkind but it is so annoying.

Anyway, Mrs Nosey and I had hopefully established that I was not indeed sunburnt and we talked about the trees, the weather, the grass and the kids. She said "well I gotta go and finish picking up the sticks before I mow". So I carried on digging holes for the raspberry plants. The boys are very excited because they used to run home from school, pick the raspberries off the bush, eat them and then come inside. They wanted the same here. They have further to go to get them but hopefully we will get a good crop. Plus I only like raspberries straight off the plant, I can't stand them with the hard pips in. Mrs Nosey's garden runs along the side of ours and at the back of ours. I heard a voice again "hey Faaamfa, what's a tree peony, is it a tree?" as she was looking at the plants we had planted right at the bottom. We had a discussion about Peonies and then she asked about the trees we were planting. I carried on working and then she shouted "hey Faaamfa, what kind of raspberries are you planting?" BOYNE and KILARNEY "oh right, not black then". They have Black Raspberries here which I thought were Blackberries but apparently they are wild Black Raspberries. Anyway, I didn't see her again for the rest of the day.

After the raspberries and trees were planted and watered, I contemplated getting the mower out. The grass at the back is long enough for the mosquitoes to be in and that is why we are being bitten but instead I decided to carry on the painting of the fence. It took me an hour to do nearly half and then the boys were home. They had a quick ice cream and then we went to swimming. Shorts and crocks today - last time I went it was snowing! The boys did very well as usual. Small started with 13 lengths and then did 3 lengths at a time of various strokes in between doing diving and jumping and treading water. They are following the Red Cross programme so they also have to learn survival techniques which is good. Smallest kept smiling at me and sticking his tongue out.

We came home, Huffle was already there, dinner in the oven and painting the porch. It looks fabulous. He has done a good job. We all ate, watched some random YouTube videos of roller coaster rides (Smallest didnt believe I had ever been on a scary ride so Huffle showed them the Collosus which we went on in Thorpe Park some years ago) and then Huffle and I walked around the garden doing a 'yes' run. If I haven't explained before, this is where we walk around the garden looking at new and old plants saying 'yes that's coming though well', 'yes we planted that last year', 'yes that looks nice' etc etc. We watered, had a couple of games of Table Tennis and then put the kids to bed.

Smallest told me a funny story yesterday. For a while now he has had an itchy bum and there are a couple of spots on it. We are constantly telling him to stop scratching and after his shower the other day, I put some sudacream on the spots to see if it would help. He said that in school he scratched his bum to the tune of 'Oh Canada' while he was singing it. (They have to sing it every morning before school starts). That really made me laugh, picturing him scratching in time. I have just tucked him up in bed and he has discarded his PJ top. Small always takes his PJ's off because he gets too warm, so now Smallest takes his top off and we call him a HillBilly. When he asked what a Hillbilly was, Small shouted, it's a man named Billy who lives on top of a hill. Tonight I sang and danced around his room pretending to do line dancing and plucking a banjo. At least I am laughing now. Wasn't earlier!

Huffle and I had our lovely pot of Yorkshire tea in front of the TV, that I can half hear, and watched Celebrity Juice, we are two weeks behind and Grandad says the latest one is the funniest EVER! He said he had tears.

I realise this is a bit of a moany post bit I do feel better already.

 

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