I had another restless night. No one else seemed to though. Mind you I did sleep through till after seven o’clock which was something of a result. I opened my Lego Advent Calendar, thought “WTF is that ?”, made brekkie and spent ten minutes waiting for the lap-top to start up. I think the poor thing is beginning to struggle. Bit like me really.
I had a little look at the Internet. People on a Facebook group in Hastings were quarrelling about garden walls in photos from a hundred years ago. Someone else had discovered Sparks yesterday and was asking for the best order in which to hear their twenty-odd albums for the first time and people were quarrelling about that too. I got fed up with the constant bickering on Facebook and had a look at my in-box.
I had an email from the Credit Karma people. I’ve mentioned this before, but it never fails to amaze me how my financial dealings are so public. The only security information I’ve given to Credit Karma are publicly available things such as my address, birthday and the like, and they seem to have access to all my financial dealings. I’ve queried it with the bank, and the bank say they are legally obliged to tell anyone who asks anything they want. The Credit Karma people know how much is outstanding on my car loan down to the penny. Mind you they’ve got my credit card balance wrong by about five hundred quid.
“er indoors TM” emerged from her pit about an hour after I had, and I dragooned her into giving me a lift to the hospital. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I was soon standing on a busy footpath outside the mobile MRI scanner in the hospital’s car park shouting my answers a confidential medical questionnaire to make myself heard over the noise of the building works nearby. Having broadcast my personal details to some fifty-odd passers-by I was then taken inside. Personally I would have rather have answered the questionnaire inside, but our local hospital clearly has little time for confidentiality (see my rant on November 10 of this year..).
Have you ever had an MRI? The idea is that you lay inside the machine whilst it scans you, then they inject you with a contrast dye and scan again to get a different sort of picture. But aiming the machine takes some doing so they stick the cannula in your arm first, get you into position and say “SIT F…ING STILL!!!”. You then lay “f…ing still” whilst they scan you, inject the stuff and scan you again. Have you ever laid still (utterly still without moving at all) for forty minutes (I timed it)? It is a tad tedious. And matters weren’t helped by their taking three attempts to get a cannula in my arm.
With scan scanned I was sent on my way. My way led me to the hospital canteen where I had a cuppa and a muffin. As I looked for somewhere to sit I saw an old colleague; someone with whom I worked about twenty years ago. I last saw her on 6 June 2014 when I wrote “As I walked back to my car I was amazed to see some old friends standing next to it. By one of life's amazing co-incidences Tim and Laura were considering buying the house just by where I had parked. We chatted for a few minutes until a rather smarmy estate agent appeared. I took that as my cue to go to work”. It turns out they bought that house from the smarmy estate agent.
I then went on to the hospital’s pre-admission clinic where I then had a ten-minute check-up. My weight, height and blood pressure were measured, and I had the standard pre-admission pep talk.
It was amazing how I managed to spend the entire morning at the hospital.
“er indoors TM” was waiting for me outside, and she drove us both over to Canterbury for a little pre-Christmas adventure. We got to the park and ride, parked, and rode.
I had wondered about McDinner. As we got off the park & ride bus we saw a KFC. And then “er indoors TM” spotted the German Doner Kebab shop which claimed they sold “Kebabs Done Right”. I shall certainly be going back there again.
Our plan for today was to see the Brickmas exhibition at the Beaney museum. Being a Lego fan I’d been looking forward to see it; it has to be said it was a disappointment. There were three half-way decent Lego displays, and a couple of dozen very small models knocked up in a lunch break by the local primary schools.
Whilst we were there we had a look at the Oliver Postgate section. As well as creating “Bagpuss”, “Noggin the Nog” and “The Clangers”, Postgate also created “Basil Brush” (I never knew that), and when he died he left all his stuff to the museum.
With a little time on our hands we Munzee-ed like things possessed, and did the Canterbury Adventure Lab and an Earthcache too, before retiring to a little café for hot chocolate. Mine was white chocolate with far more cream than sense.
I took a few photos as we were out and about. By the time we’d had our hot chocolate it was dark (dark before four o’clock!) so we made our way back to the car and home.
Once home we woke the dogs and walked them round the block. They seemed to behave themselves (for once), but Treacle did seem to be straining rather excessively over that which people and dogs strain. With walk walked I then found her chewing on a piece of wood. I wonder how long that has been a chew toy for her? is that giving her insides problems?
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