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What was your fasting blood glucose? (full on chat)

dunelm said:
Good morning everyone on a quiet start to the last day of the year here in the dark and dangerous north. The grandchildren left yesterday morning and Mrs Miggins declared the afternoon 12th night. There have been some outpourings recently, some quite difficult to write down I fear and also to read. I hope that it helped. Art bit, I have no idea what this doodle is all about. It just sort of wandered out of the end of an ink pen so must have been in there all the time. Perhaps if I give it to some snake oil pseudoscientist, they will pour over the entrails of it, give me a Myers-Briggs personality test and flash Rorschach cards at me. Hope your last day of the year is a good one. Turn the telly off, kiss, laugh, sing, dance, spin around. It takes courage to be old but life is still good(ish) if you let it. Koffy, I really must have some koffy.


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It's not Halloween again yet, is it?
Moody piece!
Still good tho!
 
gennepher said:
Digital painting for today.
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This is a stunning piece and huge statement of your determination to use your amazing creative gift to guide you through outrageous situations such as your day from hell. On your behalf I'm praying that the new heating and hot water system provides a level of comfort this winter and many more to offset that day.
 
ianpspurs said:
This is a stunning piece and huge statement of your determination to use your amazing creative gift to guide you through outrageous situations such as your day from hell. On your behalf I'm praying that the new heating and hot water system provides a level of comfort this winter and many more to offset that day.
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I do need to paint...or write...
Thank you for your good wishes @ianpspurs
I too hope they made a competent job with it all.
Thanks.
 
This is the post I've been debating about posting for two days.
This is worth a read although that negates the whole thrust of the piece which is so in tune with what the (would be) movers and shakers have tried so hard to do to contemporary discourse. One (this) sees lockdown forcing a collective rethink and the low, slow counter culture beginning to replace the YOLO/move fast and smash things rowlocks. This sonnet (and the amazing mini essay in the book) seems to me to very much be about exactly the same topic - just better because there is actually a real substance at its core not the folksy paperback psychology beloved of social media.
I'll be back = God willing - tomorrow. Happy New Year - I may try the aspirational soft boiled - (7 minutes at 170) - air fryer egg for breakfast.

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ianpspurs said:
This is the post I've been debating about posting for two days.
This is worth a read although that negates the whole thrust of the piece which is so in tune with what the (would be) movers and shakers have tried so hard to do to contemporary discourse. One (this) sees lockdown forcing a collective rethink and the low, slow counter culture beginning to replace the YOLO/move fast and smash things rowlocks. This sonnet (and the amazing mini essay in the book) seems to me to very much be about exactly the same topic - just better because there is actually a real substance at its core not the folksy paperback psychology beloved of social media.
I'll be back = God willing - tomorrow. Happy New Year - I may try the aspirational soft boiled - (7 minutes at 170) - air fryer egg for breakfast.

​

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Some very good points there Ian. I recognise myself (and Alistair) in there somewhere. I grew up knowing that I had to take care of my polio and rheumatic fever damaged brother. Alistair grew up under the shadow of Asperger's affected Neil. We both give way too much and take on too much. I don't know that either of us will find it possible to change. There are always reasons not to. Although I love him dearly, I know I didn't do my brother any favours, allowing his inherent strength and assertiveness become a bit selfish, nor did Alistair do Neil any good but even now Neil doesn't know that he can be too abrupt and a bit arrogant. Oddly though, both of them are more popular than either of us.
 
6.5 and its just another day in paradise!
Happy, merry, whatever!
Last day of the year. Last year of tory lies, misrule, incompetence and corruption!
Hopefully!
Really busy day, sorting a lot out, and #8 running rings around me, chasing his zonk toy, and football in back before rain stops play outside, transfers the fun inside, with Mrs L having a laugh at my expense. Afternoon kitchen duties and more gammon due out for later.

Just a warning!
As said to me a couple of years ago.

Don't wish someone, a prosperous New year.
It will start a political argument!

My best New Year's wishes to you all as always!
 
ianpspurs said:
This is the post I've been debating about posting for two days.
This is worth a read although that negates the whole thrust of the piece which is so in tune with what the (would be) movers and shakers have tried so hard to do to contemporary discourse. One (this) sees lockdown forcing a collective rethink and the low, slow counter culture beginning to replace the YOLO/move fast and smash things rowlocks. This sonnet (and the amazing mini essay in the book) seems to me to very much be about exactly the same topic - just better because there is actually a real substance at its core not the folksy paperback psychology beloved of social media.
I'll be back = God willing - tomorrow. Happy New Year - I may try the aspirational soft boiled - (7 minutes at 170) - air fryer egg for breakfast.

​

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Thanks for that @ianpspurs and yes, enlightened self-interest (if you like) is, I find, the way to be. I am quite used to saying things like, “Oh, thanks for that, do enjoy your day but I already have plans.” As you say, a bit folksy but looking after yourself in a kind way to both yourself and to those around you is surely the way to be.
 
A quiet evening for Mrs Miggins and myself and my thoughts are with those with pets who are nervous when the fireworks begin. It’s nearly 9am in Kiribati, but midnight there when the earth passed the gigantic start flag, plonked arbitrarily at some hypothetical moving point, for another 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes race round the sun at 67000 mph, spinning like a dervish on speed at 1000 mph as our tiny solar system hurtles along at a breath taking 448, 000 mph on it’s 230 million year trip round the Milky Way. Life is very short, tic toc, enjoy the ride.



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ianpspurs said:
Morning all on a day which always seems to divide people in terms of how to deal with the passage of time. Here both inclination and circumstances have aligned to make a sofa and TV catch up day ideal. @dunelm thank you for the wonderful art and a couple of hours thinking about your post, particularly the part on ageing. MIL is 94 on Friday, her mum lived to almost 100 (99.75). Both were widowed in their early 50s so that may affect their thinking but their views are worth considering and not, shall we say, wholly positive to be frank. The psalmists would tend to support their take on matters in many ways imho.. @JohnEGreen good news on dodging the Len Goodman's. @Krystyna23040 I'm delighted for you that this year is ending with your bg where it has normally been due to your hard work. @gennepher hug for yet more stress but as always you seem to have a good plan. Yesterday was a really good day here akin to Christmas past with a veritable feast, thanks be to God’s grace, and later family board and card games. If we weren't so tired and aware of Friday's celebration I'd box up all the decorations after that. I have another post being edited for later but tea drinking needs my full concentration for now. Have the NYE that is most true to who you really are and your current circumstances.
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Thank you @ianpspurs. I was beginning to think that I wouldn't get back to the more normal for me readings. Hopefully they will continue.
 
gennepher said:
The below is my day from hell on Friday 29th Dec 2023. These are notes taken from my day of some of the events, and my thoughts and feelings and emotions...I have only written a fraction of the events.

*****
They (boiler installation people) arrived 11am

But by they I mean 10 people, all Muslim people I think, one wearing a gold (lame metallic) shift with not a crease in it. Then yet another van arrived, more different people came in. Virtually no English among them, just an odd word.

But guess what. The loft insulation is being done as well. (I was not informed this was taking place at the same time as the boiler). Someone up there in a (disposable protective) hazmat suit and N95 mask.

They have already taken the pipe flue out of the attic and appear to be replacing that.

Blimey, more new ones (Muslim?people)come in...

...but it is like the Islamic continent has invaded my house... I have not a clue what is being said, it is all in their language.

My bungalow is only tiny, not big enough for all these people, and all their equipment.

Some doors have been taken off, they are shaving the bottoms of them ....

They are pulling the boiler out now...I have the door open at the back for fresh air coming through and the window wide open in my front room and I am sitting next to it..

I can smell that loft.

I really needed to move out while they did this...

There are two teams of guys, the boiler team and the loft team...a lot of animated discussion going on.

So glad I locked Midnight in the potting shed (he was put in there for his safety at 7:30 am with all the necessaries)

There is an incredible amount of dust everywhere and they were doing that much drilling, all these bits everywhere and they didn't clean up after that.

They had to, as they were doing the job, presumably to get paid under the government grant scheme was to photograph every step of the way. They had a checklist on their phones to what they were working to. But not only did they have to photograph it, they had to send it to wherever they were sending it to get it approved and once the call back saying it was approved that this was the next bit they were going to do or that it was right to do that or whatever then they got the parts out their van and to do that.

Every single little thing as I said had to be photographed and got permission for it on the spot before they could proceed and I think that is why this took so long because there was a lot of standing around and waiting for the phones to ring back. And there were a lot of tempers and flare ups.

But there was one massive problem their phones would not work in my house. I know they were telling the truth because no one's phone works in my house. There's always been this problem and they have to go to the end of the road to get to get a signal on their phones which is not practical for workmen.

This was literally protracting and prolonging the job when they had to do this. So one eventually came to me and said (could we use) 'your Wi-Fi? '. This job was never going to get done if I said no, so I said what is it you want to use my Wi-Fi for, you are going to have to show me what you're sending and to wherever because I am not having you send big files or stuff but I don't know what you're sending.

I wasn't being an awkward so & so, but I don't know what they're sending.

But there was a problem, my wi fi refused to connect up to their phones. Kept saying permission denied. They were about to throw in the towel and leave the job (and it would have been impossible to live in my bungalow while that could be sorted), so I made the decision to put the hotspot on my phone for them. That worked. Next thing I knew there were 5 devices working from my phone hotspot.

But it was all for work or at least what I saw was probably all for work. And they were using the appropriate amount of data for photographs.

I must be on a crossing of ley lines or something...

Only one team can work at a time. The attic loft hatch is immediately above the boiler. And the bathroom is now totally inaccessible. There is literally a one metre space here. All the boiler stuff in it and on the toilet. Was impossible.

There is a plenty of animated intense discussion with this lot in a group.

Now, they are running out of daylight time... Both attic and boiler teams are working and they keep having to step aside for the other... discussions are getting more irate and more animated...

The weather is blowing a hoolie all through the bungalow. Rain is sleeting . I am under an electric blanket by window in front room. I haven't dared drink all day ..

There is nowhere for me to move now. I cannot walk over this stuff...

They need to do the radiator by my couch I am sitting on, but nowhere for me to move to get off it. So they have moved the couch with me on it...they don't ask me, they just hold their hands up saying stay stay...

I NEED TO PEE...

Tempers are getting very high...

With all these people in my bungalow I have had all doors and windows open. One is coughing quite a bit ...

I took a photo of their van details when they weren't looking....
It is just too crowded to move here.

...just before 4:00 in the afternoon he (Mr gold lame metallic tunic ) was looking for somewhere to pray. The other men were trying to explain there was no room in my bungalow which there is not we couldn't even move around because of all their central heating stuff and tools, they took over every inch of floor space.

I'm sorry there's not an inch of space in here I said to him but he didn't even understand my English. The last I saw of him was he was walking around my front garden and trying to figure out if he could put his prayer mat down somewhere.

This is literally the day from hell for me.

The weather is blowing a hoolie all through the bungalow. Rain is sleeting . I am under an electric blanket by window in front room. I haven't dared drink all day ...

Now they are drilling window air vents in all the windows...

They have turned this place upside down with everything else they have moved I was not told any of this was talking place. The curtains had to come down for them to do this, the air vents...(Later I found a precious ornament J bought me before he died, was broken by them. )

I feel a nonentity.

So before they left you have a person who does not speak English to a person who is deaf trying to receive that information, and he is trying to tell me how to operate the boiler. Then there were more problems.

Poor Midnight he is still locked in potting shed.

They are losing their tempers with each other now, getting very sharp/short with each other...

Mr Long Tunic (boss man??) keeps walking in and out. He has no English ...he pats their backs...

Problems with the remote on the wall...

The two that are arguing have broken one wall remote, and are now installing another....after taking all the requisite photos and getting permission to get another from their van.

By this time, my phone hotspot was refusing them access, so to get their phones working they had to walk to the end of the road, in the rain and dark, send their photo and wait for the reply...


*****
Today Sun 31 Dec

There is so much I have missed out in this post, about a book's worth on how this troubled day went, and more problems than I have mentioned.

This is the 2023 government backed ECO scheme. My local council sent someone to me so I could start the application process. They chose the boiler firm. What could go wrong? I certainly did not expect this disastrous traumatic day.

I am getting an independent person in to assess the boiler if it is installed correctly, and the new flue in the roof. And whatever else I might need them for. I have several plans in action.
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That is truly absolutely awful @gennepher. Actually it is much worse than truly absolutely awful. Good that you are getting an independent person to assess their work.
 
ianpspurs said:
This is the post I've been debating about posting for two days.
This is worth a read although that negates the whole thrust of the piece which is so in tune with what the (would be) movers and shakers have tried so hard to do to contemporary discourse. One (this) sees lockdown forcing a collective rethink and the low, slow counter culture beginning to replace the YOLO/move fast and smash things rowlocks. This sonnet (and the amazing mini essay in the book) seems to me to very much be about exactly the same topic - just better because there is actually a real substance at its core not the folksy paperback psychology beloved of social media.
I'll be back = God willing - tomorrow. Happy New Year - I may try the aspirational soft boiled - (7 minutes at 170) - air fryer egg for breakfast.

​

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Really good article @ianpspurs.
 
dunelm said:
A quiet evening for Mrs Miggins and myself and my thoughts are with those with pets who are nervous when the fireworks begin. It’s nearly 9am in Kiribati when the earth passed the gigantic start flag, plonked arbitrarily at some hypothetical moving point, for another 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes race round the sun at 67000 mph, spinning like a dervish on speed at 1000 mph as our tiny solar system hurtles along at a breath taking 448, 000 mph on it’s 230 million year trip round the Milky Way. Life is very short, tic toc, enjoy the ride.



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Any chance conversion to metric?
Ha!
 
Went up stairs to the den tonight, The room I made with big planed purlins spanning a gap of 14' and lined with pine and painted with two coats of yatch varnish.

We have everything duplicated up there and the heater is permanently on back ground heat and I put it up to 2 when we go up and I switched on the Christmas tree lights.
We have very comfy recliners and leg rest stools and I was dead to the world for two hours very quickly.

When I went to sleep I was thinking of my mum's mum from Thimbleby near to Horncastle. With her older brother Jim, my mum visited Thimbleby as chilren.

Jim became a master baker and manager of Witts of Bristol and built it up to twenty shops. He had a big house behind a Witts shop on the Gloucester road and I guess quite right wing in a benevolent sort of way. He took us out in his firm provided Daimler to see if the Brabazon was rolled out at Filton.

He later had his own business and three shops in the West Country.

One day about nearly 80 years ago I met Mum's baby brother, he was a big chap and I met him at his mum's.

He was in his MP gear, had stripes and his manner was a shock to me, he was just there visting, he was a big powerful man and I was a kid of six.

Later I saw him again, when he was married to Gladys, she was the daughter of a chief police inspector who must have put a good word in for Harold.

Harold and I used to laugh about it when I saw him later when I was grown up.

He got me a weekend job at the diary taking out milk with an electric cart to all the council estates.

All these are all good memories one has, when you are near 85 and blessed with a good memory .... but I bet Harold used to scare the pants off young airmen who crossed him. :)

May the next year be a happy and healthy one to you all my friends.
D.
 
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Welcome not only to a new month but a new year!
Here's wishing peace, happiness, good health and safety throughout 2024 to you all:)
 
Krystyna23040 said:
That is truly absolutely awful @gennepher. Actually it is much worse than truly absolutely awful. Good that you are getting an independent person to assess their work.
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Thank you so very much @Krystyna23040
It would be hard to surpass that on awfulness.

But I am fighting back now.
It was rest and baby steps on Saturday before I could start turning that round on Sunday.

It is now 2024
Happy New Year everyone!

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