Telstales

Tag: health

  • A New Year’s resolution..pah, that went well!

    I’ve never been one to make any form of resolution for New Year.

    Years ago, it was more of the usual, “1st January, that’s it, I’m on a diet” knowing full well that the ‘food’ excess purchases to cover the Xmas period ‘must’ be consumed before the ‘use by date’ arrives and knowing that ‘well, it’s only a short lived over indulgence’ which will go back to normal calorie intake soon…hopefully. ( in reality, it never does!)

    So, not being one to make resolutions, and as I sleep poorly overall, reaching the magnificent lengths of maximum five hours sleep per night, I told myself as others can get a longer sleep pattern that from 1st January, this has to change.

    Now, I’m not saying to sleep in all day, not even all morning to lunch time, but going to bed at around midnight, it would be satisfying to wake at seven rather than silli-o-clock each morning.

    Therefore my one and only resolution for the year was (not is) to get a better, more settled night’s sleep and if I do wake up, to try my best to stay settled, relaxed and undertake the recently read article that to lie there with an empty head (ok.. can achieve that as it’s empty most times 😵‍💫😁) and pick any letter of the alphabet and think of all the things beginning with that letter then one will quickly doze off to sleep.

    Fine in theory. I tried. But the letter Q and then X I chose as my letters to think of all the words I could find was too limited and as I got more frustrated, I found that the process of trying to think of a more meaningful letter was making the cogs inside my walnut whirr leaving me going into ‘wake up completely’ rather than ‘go back to sleep mode!’

    Hence, I got up as usual (five hours sleep) and gave up on my New Year resolution venture, being just too complex for me to achieve!

    now for a cup-of-T

  • “I can see clearly now”…well, I should.

    A trip to the opticians.

    Simple.

    Passed all the exams with full marks and needing close and distance glasses I chose ‘a pair’ for each type.

    “Will that not confuse you,” the assistant said politely. “No, I will be fine, thank you” was my courteous reply. Remember, the customer is always right!

    I have had vari-focals in the past, a kind of one pair of glasses fits all my needs, but just so hard to wear, mainly found myself living in squirly world on a daily basis. So since that period in my life I have always chosen one pair for close up/reading, one pair for distance/driving.

    So, really, this time around, why would my choice ever confuse me?

    I really don’t like shopping of any description, so to be a part of the optical session for 30 minutes was hard work for me to cope with and after my examinations to be shown an array of probably about 3000 pairs of glasses really overwhelmed me!

    “No Sir, sorry, you can’t choose those, they are for children and those you have moved onto are more suited for women”

    See, (no pun intended) not coping at all well!

    So, being shown the selection suitable for men, I chose a pair, within five seconds.

    “Yes, thank you, that frame, shape, colour and size will be fine,” I commented, not really wanting to try them on first, which I did though after being advised to at least see how they look on my face. Which I thought, what’s the point in that, as I can’t see ‘me’ and what I look like when I’m  wearing them!

    “Yes” they are fine, thank you.

    “Which lens would you like this frame for, the readers or driving?” “Yes please,” I confidently replied.

    “Yes, but which? ” the assistant repeated

    “Both readers and driving. I like the frame so, the same frame and frame colour for both my readers and driving please.

    Which brings me right back to the assistants earlier comment, “will that not confuse you?”…..”no, I will be fine, thank you!”

    In my mind I had quickly chosen a frame which I guess I liked and as I liked them then it’s obvious I would put both types of lenses into identical looking frames. I mean, why make life simple!

    In another two years I will be going back to my opticians and following the next examination, if I need a pair of glasses for close work and a separate pair for driving, I will make sure one frame will be bright yellow, the other bright blue.

    Confuse me, the assistant said. How did the assistant know?

    Of course it confused me. The moment I put my new driving glasses on to drive home, I thought, these are no good, what has the optician done? Only then to foolishly conclude I had put put my reading glasses on! And over time, somehow I’ve managed to get them so mixed up that my driving glasses have been left in the house whilst thinking I’ve got some sort of eye defect when I’ve tried driving putting on my reading glasses instead!

    This is me though. I think, why didn’t I listen to and take good advice from the assistant? Instead of saying “no, thank you, I will be fine” I had said ” oh, why’s that?” the assistant would have very much helped me to have two year’s stress free life in the optical part of my daily routine.

    And to try to make it a tad better for me, I bought a different coloured glasses case so I knew which was in each but as they both looked the same, well, it’s obvious of the outcome!

    By the way….the customer ( in my case, as me,) isn’t always right, more likely, often wrong!…time to listen more to those who know!

    now for a cup-of-T

  • Suck it up Bobs at it again

    It’s just about Autumn time here in the UK….. Days are a little shorter now, temperatures although mild are a little bit down.

    And leaves from deciduous trees are changing into their Autumn clothes and starting to parade their Autumn attire as they drop peacefully and quietly to the ground…Lovely to see and a good reminder that the cooler months are coming soon!

    So, so peaceful to see the Autumn leaves landing on the ground silently….then Bob next door decides “That’s it, you lil buggers…you’re not staying in my garden any longer…even though they’ve only just appeared overnight…..how do I know this…..well Bob has bought himself a ‘gardening vac’…. Just like an indoor hoover only meaner and angrier which compliments Bob in his understanding of nature really!

    ‘Suck-it-up-Bob’ gets to work around his back garden area. Sucking up allsorts of stuff.. Yes..mainly leaves but obviously all small beneficial insects that start to use the leaf litter as their Winter home…. So just like a mincer that grinds chunks of meat or a wood chipper that sorts out branches, so the garden vac angrily and whiningly munches anything it can suck up it and bag it into microscopic pieces.

    I use a rake…it rakes up fallen leaves and I leave them to decompose in the adjacent borders to provide organic matter to the soil and for Winter food for birds foraging in the garden finding grubs to eat when flicking leaves over ( a funny sight to see)

    Still, Bob’s garden is once again in pristine condition…well..for a minute or two as another leaf…ooops…I mean batch of leaves fall to the ground….never mind Bob…it will keep you busy right through to December 😀

    now for a cup-of-T

  • What?…you charge for talking?… No way

    Ok, so I’m busy with my gardening business. I don’t make a lot of money but at my time of life there’s more to it than that.

    It keeps me busy, active, physically fit as I can be, mentally engaged keeping track of everything that it takes to run a small business and most importantly, happy!

    Now, my charges to customers range from some quoted work so it’s fixed every visit, say for mowing where everything is the same week in week out, to more variable gardening consisting of many different and varying gardening tasks to do on each visit, so these costs do change according to what needs doing.

    All my customers are happy with the arrangements for the gardening I have done over the last 10.5 years!…yaay!… And then, of course, there’s always one 😁

    So, at this customer’s garden where I undertake many varied tasks, the customer, by the way has done this many times, creates this type of ‘chatty blockage’ always as I’ve just finished…. Lovely to have a chat in passing, but I’m always conscious of my time and delays have a knock on effect through my planned working day.

    Now, I’m certainly not a grabber. A few minutes here and there being non productive doesn’t really matter, but when it’s a case of giving my horticultural expertise which I trained for and it’s substantial in time, then I do charge as I feel it’s all part of my gardening visit.

    It was questions asking about grass seed, lawn fertiliser, getting a better lawn, rose pruning, clematis pruning, cracked plant pot, rose diseases and staining to paving, (by others)…. It took time, my time, my expertise, my knowledge….so why not charge just a little bit more to impart this knowledge for my customer to understand and learn something new? Simple really?…well, obviously not!

    And this became an issue I’ve not encountered before.

    It was £3.00 additional cost.

    The customer complained.

    I explained.

    The customer sacked me.

    I didn’t blink an eye.

    I filled the space with a new customer on my reserve list.

    I’m happy!

    now for a cup-of-T

  • Three wasp whammi

    I’m not really afraid of bugs, insects and stingy thingys generally, kinda goes with the territory of my gardening business coming into close/very close contact with nature each day.

    Yet, I don’t care much for wasps. (Although, total respect for them)

    I’ve been told that if they land on you and you stay still they just mooch around your body then think….nah, nothing much going on here, so they fly away quite happily!

    That is, until they get just a little bit more aggressive. Was it something I did?.. hmm, probably!

    It wasn’t my fault, just a natural reactionary reaction!

    It wasn’t even during my working day.

    Just sat there minding my own business, one wasp decide to use my nose as it’s landing pad. Did I see it coming?.. nope. It just did it in a split second. Stay still?…. Nope!…react like an out of control wind mill?…ohh yes!

    In that split second that it had landed and my brain had computed what had happened….My hand in all my arm flapping motions knocked it off my nose, luckily without causing a nose bleed (whammie 1)…. Only to instantly realise I had knocked it off onto my arm when it was hanging on, from which my windmill arms realigned, I knocked it off again (whammie 2) only then to realise it had landed on my leg. Shrieks of bad language, from me, not the wasp, had me flailing about as I knocked it off again again (whammie 3)

    Angrily, the wasp (and me by now) whizzed around zipping and darting infront of me, and to my horror, two of its waspy mates had now turned up, presumably to join in with the fun, so I did an ‘exit stage left’ moment, like a coward, and hid indoors.

    Thinking it through afterwards, maybe I should just have stayed still when it first landed on my nose, but just had a vision of it crawling up one of my nose pipes and delivering a lil stingy thingy up there!

    I don’t care much for wasps! And I certainly didn’t care for an inflated and really sore nose pipe!

    now for a cup-of-T

  • OMG.. confusion reigns

    So as you are aware, I have my own gardening business. I’m 66 and well over a half now..still working..and why not.. while I can….I should.

    But, I’ve decided to ‘prune’ it back slightly by working just four days a week, and taking Fridays off ( if I can)

    And .. it’s so confusing….( Maybe it’s cuz I’m just getting a tad bit older)….

    Yaaay.. Friday off.

    But as I progress through the day doing what I enjoy…aka gardening in my own garden for a change ( oh my..I do need to get a life 🤣), I start to get confused and by the afternoon..as I’m off, and not working in folk’s gardens….I tell myself it’s Saturday….which in turn brings it’s own problems in that when Saturday comes I think it’s Sunday!

    And it gets worse when Sunday comes.. it then becomes the eighth day of the week.

    Soo soo confusing.

    I really don’t know how folk cope with shift work!

    Maybe a five day working week is easier for me to cope with!…as long as it’s Monday to Friday inclusive!

    now for a cup-of -T

  • Happy Eater….

    Yes, I spelled Easter wrong but in reality, right!

    I don’t do Easter eggs, maybe I’m too old for that or they are just too expensively hyped up for that once a year gorging session whereby you feel really queasy after troughing through three and onto that fourth chocolate egg in 30 minutes as you realise the sell by date was 18th April!

    So, instead, I just eat, no, not the online ‘click-a-meal-delivery-in-ten-minutes’ thingy. I just over consume my way through the Bank holiday weekend.

    Because I can, and knowing fully, that all my consumptions will be burned off as I re-engage doing my favourite thing ‘gardening’ for my customers on Tuesday!

    Happy Eater!

    now for a cup-of-T….. (and some chokkie bikkies of course!)

  • Eeek….ouchy 3 moment

    It was a simple task

    No need to gasp

    Pruning apples trees

    Up a ladder not on my knees

    Sun shining in the sky

    Everywhere was really dry

    One tree pruned

    I’m just so tuned

    Second one smaller tree

    Easier for me

    Final branch needed saw

    Hand held one makes an easy chore

    Found that branch was hard to saw

    But done this many times before

    Last pull back and branch is cut

    Felt stabbing pain, oh tut tut

    My other hand holding trunk

    Into my hand the saw had sunk

    Removing gloves it so did bleed

    Wrapping with towelling I so did need

    Packed up quickly homeward bound

    Cold sweats really did abound

    Lots of blood from my gardening chore

    Folk said “it’s a nick” don’t be a bore

    But it’s still my hand and hurt it does

    I don’t do pain, I make a fuss

    So ouchy 3 has come and gone

    I do wonder how long gardening I can carry on

    I love my work and the folk I meet

    But not much fun if I get buried down six feet!

    Yes, I’m a wimp when it comes to pain and blood and I work as careful as I can. Accidents are just that.

    Could I have planned the way I had worked on that second apple tree, of course…..but only after the event!

    So, off for a few days whilst my hand repairs itself…. Hopefully no more accidents please… My body can’t take it!

    now for a cup-of-T

  • Well, she’s still here!

    So, arriving at a customer’s garden today and when I know my customer is in, I always knock or bing-bong at the door in my usual pre-work chat routine, one to say “hi”, the other to find out what gardening they would like me to do.

    The meaning of my usual ‘Hi’ is always followed by “how are you today?”

    Well, today my elderly customer replied, “Well, I’m still here!”

    To which I replied, “ahh….that’s what my elderly mum used to say every time I spoke to her” ( it brought back instant memories to me as those words had just been said by my customer, of the very same words my mum always said to me)

    And in an instant without thinking I then said “she’s dead now.”

    And as my words auto-fell out of my mouth (and I thought, nooo, what have I just said) my customer just smiled back at me and quietly said ” I will be soon too”.

    A moment’s brief interlude brought me bounding back with “nah, you’ve got years to go”, knowing full well that she hasn’t and her also knowing that too!

    Anyways, after a continuing chat about the freezing cold weather and looking at her pots of Iris, Daffodils and Crocus flowering away in their multicoloured and blooming fashion, she guided me to an area of weediness needing my gardening attention.

    Well, all in all, my customer is ‘still here’ and I’m ‘still here’ too!

    now for a cup-of-T

  • New ouchy moment x2

    Well, I’ve worn my safety glasses all day over the last two gardening days…. didn’t even knew I had them on, so comfy, and, well, see through ( well I guess they need to be!)

    So much so that setting off from one customer to the next, I tried to put my driving glasses on over my safety glasses as I forgot I was wearing them.

    No inci dents, no pokey eyes out, my safety glasses work.

    So, now I need safety glasses for the top of my head! Twice today I stood up from a kneeling gardening position clearing weeds completely forgetting there were low slung tree branches directly above my head. Not once but twice I managed to bang my head causing pain, some blood and more “ohh my gosh” comments or similar from me!

    So, head protection is my next challenge to find.

    Time for more plasters….

    and a cup-of-T