the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

Between us, although mainly myself, the Berkshire Belle and I have been keeping the NHS busy lately. I have had my annual diabetes check (results not back yet), we have booked in for our Covid boosters and will try to get our ‘flu jabs at the same time. here’s also a new app to install that allows video appointments. On the non-NHS front, but still medical, I am off to the fang-puller to talk about an implant to replace the tooth that got knocked out in a fall about a year ago. I’m also due for hearing and eyesight tests that I need to make appointments for, and I’ve had this morning my letter about my annual diabetic eye test. Seventy years of use, and abuse, have taken their toll.

One result I do have from the diabetes test is my weight on the surgery scales which I assume must be accurate. When I weight myself at home I do it wearing just my underwear, but at the surgery I was on the scales fully dressed, including shoes, and with car keys, ‘phone and wallet in pockets. 121 kg is too much, but probably more like 117 kg and that is about 10 kg more than I would like to be seeing. I am writing this at the end of a two month period in which we have had a variety of birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate and that has involved some good eating. No excuses, but, with Christmas coming up, I need to get a grip.

Finacially we are reasonably comfortable at the moment and have no worries over the energy crisis other than what a series or power cuts might do to our web stocked freezer. However, we are trying to cut back on consumption and have both turned the heating down a degree and cut back on the hours that it runs for. We have taken various devices out of service; the Alexa dots for example, and are carrying on with our usual efforts like only putting as much water as we need in the kettle. Such things are ingrained in people of our generation perhaps.

I once of my former professional careers I used to manage a large property portfolio and dealt with energy bills in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Finding ways of reducing those costs was always a priority. Reducing consumption was only a vehicle for reducing cost, but such things become habit. Any home we might only be saving pennies rather than thousands, but every little helps and if we are working towards helping to stave off power cuts then that’s fine.

The Wonder of Wokingham and I both remember well the scheduled power cuts of the early 1970s. She was in RAF quarters back then with two young children and I was working as a stock controller. We saw the cuts differently because of those lifestyles, but neither of us want to have to go through all of that again. Today we all have so many more electric devices than back then. In the time of the last cuts not everyone had a TV, now it seems that most homes have one in every room. Then most rooms downstairs had two single power sockets and upstairs rust one. We have seven in the kitchen now and there is something plugged into all bar one of them. It is a different world and we have to face up to our excesses.

I have had another couple of weeks off work and we have tried to get out and about a bit more. That has left little time for the garden and garage, but I have been doing a bit in both. Autumn maintenance in the garden and getting the garage cleared out a bit so that I can get back to using it without risk of being buried under an avalanche. I have started getting some things off to auction so that should see a few extra pennies dropping into my piggy back over the coming months. Other stuff will go to charity and the rest to the council tip. We just have too much stuff.

Collecting is habit forming and I am especially guilty of it, to the point of an addiction at times. Fortunately some of what I have collected has accumulated in value (a lot has not), and it is the former that I am firing off to the auction rooms. None of it was bought as an investment, I bought it because I wanted it, but there comes a time when I realise that you have things that have been shut away in cupboards or the loft and start to think that it is pointless. There is little satisfaction, for me, in k=just owning something and so I have hardened my heart and started to move it on. If it generates some cash then that is doubly welcome.

With the Hastings Hottie and I having both seen milestone birthdays in the last few weeks we have decided to face up to another harsh reality and we are going to having lasting power of attorney documents drawn up in case either of us loses our faculties. We took out funeral plans earlier in the year and, whilst these things are depressing, it is worth sorting out. Having been through the problems of a parent with dementia I understand how hard it is and, should I fall foul of that, I would not want the Berkshire Belle to have to deal with the fallout without the relevant piece of paper to allow her to manage me.

Cheerfull topics are required now, so a few words on how the garden recovered from the heat and drought. We did loose some things and others were badly scorched, but most plants have recovered. As I get through the Autumn tidy up I will have a better idea of where we have issues. My move to more and more containers planted seems to have worked and we are looking around to see if we can find a few old chimney pots to add some variety. Containers can be moved and so I can shift them around as I like.

The garden isn’t getting too much attention at the moment, but another couple of weeks work on the garage should have that sorted out and I can get the garden ready for Winter. It has been an odd year again, but now that we have the fences sorted out I can have a more normal run through next year all being well. No doubt there will be odd weather again, it has become the norm, but I now have nearly 600 litres of water storage to help me over any drought conditions and I have improved the drainage in the garden to cope with the odd monsoon. The new fences give us some shelter from high winds and so we are in a better position too start a new year than ever before.