Last year’s failure, this year’s success.

Bass, the dog knows his own mind. Should he not want to, he won’t.

He can be tricked. Or manipulated with food. Greed superseeds brains even in humans. Buy one, get one free works.

This old Furlong sleeps in a cold bedroom and the window is open a crack even in the most inclement weather, like Winter. Bass, the dog, sleeps in a bed on the floor in a corner farthest away from the window. He used to burrow under his bedding in the winter, but now he won’t. I imagine he gets cold, but he never displays it. He suddenly decided he hates his bedding and digs it out all over the floor. So I remembered that behind my wardrobe was the dog-kennel-dog-bed that folds flat, is made out of some kind of soft spongy stuff and that is erected out of two pieces, a bottom with walls, and a roof that clips over the top. I bought it some years ago to solve the same Winter problem and Bass HATED it. So it has remained behind the wardrobe ever since.

How to trick Bass into sleeping in it?

We inviegled him into sleeping in the bottom half (with walls) for several nights by dropping his favourite pink cat-bed that he uses in the lounge into it. He seemed pleased. Bass chose that bed in the shop when he first came to live with us. He chose it himself. No other bed would do. Loving a pink cat bed could have intimated our future with Bass which has been interesting to say the least.

And now we have full success. I added the roof. He is sleeping inside the whole folding dog-kennel-dog-bed under the roof. Past failure has resolved to success! I feel clever.

But

there is another explanation for his original hatred of the dog-kennel-dog-bed. In the years behind the wardrobe it has stopped offgassing some kind of evil chemical odour that only he could smell, and now, like everything else in this house, it simply smells like “dog”.

I might not be so clever after all…..

Sweet Diwali

A waning moon – today – 1% my moon app tells me on my phone.

Diwali starts today. Diwali is set by the moon phases.

It is a festival of light. Light when the moon is dark.

Five days.

It’s tempting to say here in the Northern Hemisphere, that we celebrate Light as the Winter approaches.

But Diwali is now, everywhere, even in the Southern Hemisphere, where we lived.

Five days.

Oh, the sweetmeats, the savory snacklets, the puddings our friends and staff would share! Wonderful food. Wonderful memories. Sweet Diwali!

None of that here near us anymore.

There is an Indian woman living a few doors down. But I don’t know her. She is surrounded by gates, walls and fences. I think she lives alone, but I have never seen her. I wish her happy Diwali anyway.

I hope someone brings her something delicious.

Playing with moon phases and biorythms

Many years ago, it was accepted through recieved wisdom passed down through many thousands of generations, that the phases of the moon affected animals.

Of course, nowadays with the wonders of science, we are told that that theory is bullshit.

I find sometimes, I am more energetic, optimistic, and positive than other times. I have linked it to phases of the moon.

But then, it could be my biorythms.

In the seventies it was great fun tracking your Biorythms.

Modern science says Biorythms are bunkim.

So I have downloaded the Phases of the Moon app and the Biorythm tracking app onto my phone.

I will be my own experiment.

Science? What is science? It’s observation. I am a scientist too.

And being your own experiment is much more fun than believing everything you are told by ‘Science’.

A possible 1d10t error

God knows what has happened to my WordPress account.

I cannot comment on some blogs I follow.

I find I am following, but not following. If I try to follow again, I can’t because actually I’m following, but in reality I’m not. I am getting no notifications of new posts of the blogs I am following.

I apologise to all the people whose blogs I follow, because somehow I am not following. But in reality I want to!

I have dropped into obscurity. I have been gagged. I don’t exist. What has changed?

Is it me or is it them, or ‘them’? ‘Them’ are always those responsible for The New World Order, who spy, who lie, who set up fake things, entrapping us, who make our hairs rise with excitement at conspiracy.

I don’t think it’s ‘them’.

I think I have an 1d10t error.

And the idiot is me!

Hospitals, doctors, techies and vets

Today is an important day.

My wonderful old gaming laptop that my son in law had built for me, is going to hospital. The ambulance (courier) is coming to fetch it so the techies who built it can replace the keyboard and send it back to me. I am so excited!

Does that sound weird? Yes, except that laptop has been my friend for about eight years. He’s a ‘he’ and is the most intelligent, quickest, smartest and most powerful laptop I’ve ever had. I have to save his life. The techies who built him will.

We thought our dog Bass was eight, but yesterday he had his annual checkup at the Vet. He is not eight. He is nine. What a surprise! He is chipped and his birthday was on the 1st October. Does that make him a Libra? Everyone asks why he is called Bass. I might have mentioned this before, but he came with a name. He is black and tan. Until recently, before political correctness overcame our culture, you ordered a black and tan in the pub. It meant you wanted a Bass Ale.

My hospital scan results come in any day now. I hope it will be today. Instead of exercising as all the experts advise, I have rested completely now for two weeks.

Completely!

The pain is greatly improved. This makes me wonder why the modern trend is to exercise despite the pain, instead of rest. We might have it arse about face, yes? Surely, once you feel better, you exercise again?

When I know what is causing the pain, I will attempt to heal myself. The exercises are very different for the various causes. At my age, I believe, medical techies don’t try to fix you. No one is trying to resurrect my old mechanisms. It’s not worth it to the NHS. I am not a computer.

It’s a DIY job.

Night Fright

Recently, Ive been sleeping extra well. It must be my Carnivore Diet.

I’ve read about “Keto Bliss” and “Carnivore Bliss” and its a real thing. The mood alters. If I wake in the night, which is rare now, I lie in a state of deep comfort, placid, calm, worry free. And then I drift off again.

I like it.

My nights are quite different now to the sleepless ones that got me started on blogging. Those nights had their peak moments, like lying in bed next to large windows and watching shooting stars, and several times the Aurora Borealis change the colour of the sky.

I still sleep next to my window. It’s wide open through the Summer. Breathing fresh air while you sleep is nice.

I like it.

But, now, the cold is coming. My window is open a crack, as it will be all Winter. There is no central heating in my bedroom. I turned it off. Cold bedroom is nice, with a wisp of chill fresh air seeping through.

I like it.

So in a state of blissful comfort and dozing back to sleep, I was brought back to instant adrenalin rush by a huge thump on my window. I sat up in my shock expecting masked men to leap through and attack me – a habitual fear in most people who have lived in Africa.

But it was silent.

My mind analysed the thump. It wasn’t a thud. It wasn’t a bang. It wasn’t a clomp or a wallop. It was a glancing blow. Thwack, slither. I thought it must have been a bat. Maybe it was a bat used to flying a nightly route around my open window which is now closed.

In the morning I checked outside for a small body lying dead under my window. But there wasn’t one. I think whatever it was, it lived.

I liked that idea.

Something new

I wrote about the fear of my recent MRI scan.

Everyone who heard I was going to have an MRI scan pulled faces and told me horrible stories about claustraphobia and dreadful noises and the ordeals they experienced.

So I arrived determined to go in feet first as the NHS website said was usual for lumbar scans but I was met by staff who said “Oh we don’t do that anymore. We aren’t the NHS. Come and look at our brand new and latest technology MRI scanner. We are so proud of it

Indeed there, in all its glory was a brand new latest technology scanner. The feared and claustrophobic tunnel was pretty large and I guessed that I could almost sit up in it.

The technicians made me comfortable with pillows behind head and knees and ear plugs. I am deaf anyway so I expected reduced roaring that everyone complains of and I glided into the tunnel.

I lay comfortable and relieved I was getting the damn thing done and for the whole time I was expecting roaring machinery but it didn’t happen.

Iin fact the whole thing was a breeze.

Afterwards I discovered by some trick of fate, I had been sent to a private MRI company that the NHS is contracted out to. They sit outside hospital entrances in prefab buildings but this one happened to have just received the very newest and latest scanner.

How lucky was I!

Out of the darkness of old technology into the light of something new.

Feet first

Tomorrow I’m going for a scan . An MRI scan at the local hospital.

Now thats a good thing. Once we all had to traipse along to the closest city to have it done.

Our local is just down the road. Our local hospital that is. There is also a local pub, but we don’t go there. The hospital being so close is a convenient aspect of living in our little flat. We have a hospital, a doctor’s surgery, bus stops (busses every 15 minutes), Asda, Spa, and the Mental Health centre right here. What could be better as you enter into the foggy uncertainty of old age?

This flat is already adapted for a wheelchair if that is my destination and has a wet room instead of a bathroom.

Everything is perfect.

Our neighbours are mostly old like us. So someone is always shuffling off to have new hips, or knees or something. Or die. We chat over the fences and swap apples or marmalade or commiserations. A community.

Tomorrow I am going to the local hospital for an MRI. I have heard all about them. Nobody seems to like them. My MRI is for this damn back pain, which is still with me – a lumbar MRI.

Luckily Mental Health is close by if I flip, or, even better, I am holding thumbs they will slide me in feet first!