New Year's ablutions..

When you turn on the oven and it immediately smells like you've got a full roast cooking, you know that your mother is calling you from beyond the grave to stick your head in it and get scouring. The new year, bereft as it is, of exciting things to do, has just seen me experiencing an orgiastic burst of joy by removing shedloads of burnt fat from the inside of my cooker. In this gleaming clean machine, I cooked a pretend Christmas cake. Well, the original one was divided into three and two sizeable slabs sent off to the banished families. Our third rapidly disappeared in the usual excesses of Christmas gluttony. Last night, however, I heard fumblings and foragings from the kitchen. Dearest was on the prowl for something sweet. Ridiculously he was still looking for Christmas cake that had long disappeared.(Mainly down his gullet. And possibly some down mine. Actually, I like to wear mine on my hips..) "I'll make you one tomorrow," I promised. So today I got out my Slimming World All Bran fruit cake recipe, and soaked the fruit in Brandy. (Bit off-piste that, not strictly S.World but never mind.) Well, dry January was rather tiresome. All I can say is that the cake mixture tasted divine. So much so that I swear the cooked cake is half the size its meant to be. Whilst I most likely am twice the size. Happy New Year! (A little behind? Not me. I've got a bloomin' big un.)

Farewell, my lovelies...

Well, hello, readers everywhere. I've been on a break. Not an exotic one. A long weekend in Southport actually. And very nice it was too. I have to confess that one of my primary objectives in accepting this invitation to stay with these friends, was to try out their new toilet. Yes, they have got one of these weird and wonderful ones that wash your derriere, dry it with warm air and then powder it. Well, not the last bit, obviously. I spent the whole weekend sucking in my cheeks to gather courage to use this magical feat of engineering.  I finally steeled myself to go to their ensuite. Only to find that mine host was truly enthroned. I beat a hasty retreat and the moment passed. So I have to say, I cannot report back.
Rest assured I will, at any time in the future.. However, I have to warn you that I am thinking of extending my current blog break. It has occurred to me that it's a bit rude to bugger off into the wide blue yonder without so much as a wave goodbye. You might think that I'd been run over by a bus or something.
I would like to think that come the autumn I will be impelled to continue. However, at the moment I am about to embark on further house renovations, involving plaster being removed and replaced in living areas. The garden, small though it is, is demanding more attention, and I have to confess, I am really enjoying the atavistic thrill of slugicide. I have to practice the piano to calm myself. Currently on Summertime which should be perfected by Christmas; Sherlock's theme, by Christmas 2019, and Fly Me to the Moon by next week.

So thank you all for following me for the past couple of years. I have so enjoyed myself. If I've occasionally made you smile, then that makes me very happy indeed.
I wish you all a happy Summer.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the tortured chords of a rookie pianist playing us out....

"Who's Eaten My Petunias?" You sing it, I'll play it...

Leave a garden for a few days at this time of year and expect a jungle on your return. Mine was well-watered, thanks to the ministrations of my sister-in-law. It was also, in part, well-eaten. A bit like me on holiday, come to think about it.
Shrubs are shrubbing like mad and in a small garden need to be given a haircut. Roses are blossoming earlier than anticipated and filling the air with fragrance. Shropshire Lad out the front and Gertrude Jekyll out the back.

Before I'd left for Cornwall, I'd planted a petunia I'd been given, amongst some established violas in a tub. It never occurred to me that slugs and snails would slime their way across the patio and up a terracotta pot to munch the blooming lot.  I showered the slug pellets with maniacal zest over what was left.
I then looked at the gooseberry bush. It was laden with small green pellets that you could call young gooseberries. The leaves also bore signs of another garden invader: tiny black caterpillars. Last year they munched their way through leaves and goosegogs, so this year, I cleared the branches of every berry. Poached with a bucket-load of sugar, they were delicious.





Summer is a-coming-in.
"Summer Time" is my latest piece on the piano. As I resumed my practice, a gruff  not quite sotto enough voce was heard to say,
"Well, that's one thing I haven't missed.."
What can he mean?

Uplifting tales or pressing the wrong buttons?

When I worked at BBC TV centre in the late eighties, the lifts were a heavily relied-upon form of transportation. If one arrived, you would run for it. To save a tedious wait for the next.
I remember being one of a crowd that had sardined itself inside one of these capacious boxes. The comic writer Denis Norden leapt in as the doors were closing and found himself facing a crowd of twenty people.
“Now I expect you’re all wondering why I’ve asked you here!” he chortled. He probably used that line habitually but it never failed to please.

I dare say Richard Ned Lebow, the hapless professor, thought he too would get a little chortle, when he found himself in a lift. When asked which floor he required, he answered,  Ladies Lingerie.  He hadn’t reckoned on his audience containing a raging feminist who took exception to this. This feeble joke she believed, was  designed to offend and denigrate women. He has refused to apologise (He should of course, have waded in with, I'm sorry I dropped a bit of a bloomer there...) and it is now being taken to another level. (The Men swear department?) It certainly makes me swear at the supreme idiocy of the situation.

Years ago, when people asked you what you were working on, you’d say the name of the director followed by his show. Like Mike Newell's Mayor's Charity. One day, in a lift at the Beeb I was asked what show I was doing. To which I replied,
“Roland Joffe’s Willy." as the lift doors closed.

I wouldn’t have offended anyone then, and in a similar context I wouldn't be taken to task now,  as seemingly I have a licence to say what I want.  Men, it seems, no longer have that option.
The swing of the pendulum is so weighted in women's favour that  instead of being mesmerised, we  all should be asking questions.
No one seems prepared to stick their heads above the parapet. To ask the right questions.

Star-Grazing in Cornwall....

Nobody ever wants to be a sub-prefect. Or a deputy Head Girl. In the same way, I imagine, that if you are a celebrity then you don't really want to be a minor celebrity. So with this is mind, I feel a little on the mean side by describing the two well-known faces I spotted at fifty yards as minor slebs. They were staying at our hotel in Cornwall last week.  I was as chuffed as punch to have identified them, as I only know one from the radio. I then studiously avoided eye-contact with them for the rest of the week. Because the last thing you want to do when on holiday is make eye-contact with outsiders. Nest-ce pas? That goes for me, rather than them. At the end of the week they might have been wondering, "Doesn't anyone here know who we bloody are??"

But the hotel we stay at, is such a charming bastion of English refinement  (boasting an hors d'oeuvres trolley as well as a pudding trolley) that nobody heeded their presence and concentrated on consuming as many calories as it is humanly possible to do, in any given day.
What I did learn, however, is that when, in future, I spot someone well-known, I do not discretely nudge Dearest-soul-of-discretion, and draw them to his attention. Not unless I want to hear the immortal words,
"Who??? Never heard of 'em!"
Not even when I Googled him a picture.
Maybe I was the only one to recognise them.
If they are reading this Bunion Blog in search of guidance and stumble across this entry then I am sure they will be impressed by my consummate discretion.

A Lighter Inbox...

Oh, I feel refreshed. Revitalised. Nothing to do with the wedding. Caught up on that. A précis  on late night news... plenty. The bride looked exquisite; the groom looked like.... Harry. Some magnificent frockage. Hattily, nattily, stylish. And all went swimmingly.
Marvellous feat of British pageantry.

I'm actually talking about my Inbox. And yours. Because this is big stuff. I am so tired of Bitcoin emails. So fed up with being seduced by Russian women. Why don't they send me some women from North Yorkshire? I don't need any more insurance, and am not ready to put my first down payment on my funeral. Thank you, thank you, but finally no thank you.... No more raking through hundreds of unsolicited emails searching for the one that a friend might have sent you. Or missing the only genuine one because you have been trigger-happy in exterminating  all the trash.

Now we have emails asking you nicely to press this button if you wish to continue to receive emails from their company. No, thanks! The power. The pleasure. No more bombardment. No more delectable temptation. Control.

My Inbox is going to be lean and mean.
I'd like to have been mean with the Ben and Jerry's  cookie dough this evening. I'd like to have been mean with the Digestive Lights I spread with butter. It's all because I wasn't mean with the Porta 6 tonight. Which means that there is fat chance of me being lean in the foreseeable future.
If only I could zip up my personal Inbox....

Eve of the Royal Wedding ..

Well, I don't know about you, but I will be getting myself an early night. I want to look and feel my best, in readiness for the Harry and Meghan wedding fest. Tomorrow is the big day.
Steady the buffs. You might be watching, but I have to say, really,  that I will be quite happy to dip into a few edited highlights on News at Ten.
Because my dears, I have already done the Royal Wedding. Do you remember my mentioning a wedding filming date a month or so ago? Well, I was attending The Windsors Royal Wedding, filmed for Channel 4. If you like satire served hot hot hot, then this is the dish, or rather, the silver server for you. It is very funny. Rude and irreverent. Just my cup of cha.
So when gaga Britain is glued to their TV sets tomorrow, I will be planting my begonias. I wish the happy couple joy. And if they have as much fun as I did on those four days filming, they will have a ball.
Cheers! Time for one of my Negronis, I feel.

Not to be confused....

In Celebration of Big Organs...

Earth Wind and Fire at the Royal Albert Hall in 1997 was brilliant. But I swear it started my tinnitus. Last night, similar seats, the Grand Organ Celebration almost finished off the job. Oh boy. One of the biggest organs in the world and at times, I felt blown away. Literally. Not metaphorically.

I was happy to hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor which meant,  as a Hammer horror movie fan in my youth, I expected to see Christopher Lee at any moment. But really, apart from a cheerful rendering of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on a piano, I have to say that we did not really engage with the music.

The concert was really for our guest's benefit who is an organ master. Even he had plenty to say about it. His comments were more technical than ours, of course.  When it came to the finale which was an improvised concerto, we were told by Wayne Marshall that improvising was like standing naked in front of an audience. Thankfully, no room for three more organs on stage. That was a relief. And so it was that we experienced one of the most magnificent organs in the world, and wished that we could have escaped at half-time.

I hope you appreciate that I have not resorted to any Mrs Organ-Morgan type of cheap joke in the style of Dylan Thomas.
Occasionally, I can demonstrate refinement and good taste.
God, how dull!

It's a whopper...

Neutrons that Fire Together Wire Together.....

I'm a sucker for supplements. Do they work? I wouldn't know, as I never stick with one long enough to find out. Years ago I purchased a bottle of Gingko Biloba which is meant to improve memory. It amused my friends to hear that I kept forgetting to take it.
At my age any glitch in memory, or poor word retrieval strikes fear into my heart. Could this be...
you know... that thing? Oh Lord, it'll come to me....  You know what I mean?

So any article on memory immediately grabs my attention. Is there some new trick in the book that can help? There was one this morning that caught my eye. Most of it I already knew.
Mnemonics are a fine device, provided you can remember them in the first place.
Write things down physically rather than type them. Generational thing... I don't type reminders.. still at the post-it note-level of evolution.
Blueberries and brussel sprouts (though not combined). Yes, both feature in our diet.
No, the new item to me, was caffeine. Apparently, a dose of caffeine after you have seen what you wish to remember has significant impact on memory.

Then I read a fascinating article about Sea slugs. The study is published in eNeuro (which is obviously where I didn't find it).  The experiment  involved a certain amount of sea slug cannibalism.. (See what I mean? Riveting stuff..). Leading researchers in the University of California  claim to have achieved an RNA memory transplant between living individuals of the same species.

Wowzers! If I take an extra large slug of coffee I might remember to tell Dearest all about it at the end of the day...

The best coffee ever...

Sleeping with the lights on...?

You will be forgiven for thinking that I am a bone-brain. No, come on, admit it. I'll never know. But the image you have of me is of a gin-swilling hedonist who does nothing but watch TV in her spare time.  I said it first. It lessens the pain. But you are only partly right. For I have most recently got back into reading.

The reading muscle is like any other muscle in the old bod. It needs to be flexed, if not given regular exercise. I have to confess that my reading muscle, unlike the rest of my finely-honed physique (Excuse me while I choke on my own spit... do you ever do that, as a matter of interest? No? Sorry I mentioned it.) yes, my reading muscle is distinctly flabby.
I have to confess that my reluctance to read is partly induced by Dearest who loves to read before he turns off the light. Can anyone explain to me how you get to sleep while the light is on? Because when he finally switches it off, he starts snoring in 0.5 nanoseconds. So reading has become a sort of bete noir.

But now it's bonsoir bete noir ( Forget the Welsh, I'm on a roll here or is it a baguette?) because I am reading again. So here is my list of must-reads: Proust, A la Recherché du Temps Perdu; Tolstoy, War and Peace followed by Joyce, Ulysses.
Asleep? Me too. Even with the light on. I am merely toying with you. Reading muscle? You need reading biceps to tackle that lot. No, I have to say my choice is far more prosaic. A few months ago I read Jane Harper's debut novel called The Dry. Set in Australia, an intriguing mystery, quite engaging. Her latest, A Force of Nature made me feel that this was one she'd written earlier, and found it under the bed. Very tame.

I always get a bit antsy when a novel receives huge acclaim. Eleanor Oliphant is  Completely Fine seems to have been universally loved.
My Glaswegian aunt had a GP who was renowned for saying she was "Fine,"even when suffering from terminal cancer. When pressed, she said that it stood for "Frustrated Irascible Neurotic and Exhausted." As an expression, subsequently, it has always made me look below the surface. Dear Eleanor Oliphant is far from fine. It is a perfect piece describing the inner world of a woman with Aspergers. You won't read that in the reviews; at least in none of those I've read. But it is indeed the case. Females with this condition are very undiagnosed. They tend to fly beneath the medical radar. This is a very charming portrayal that gives you great insight into her world. Beautifully written, it is a very gentle read with amusing social observation. And set in Glasgow. Auntie Margaret would have approved. And her GP.

I would like it recorded, however, that my reading into the small wee hours has no effect whatsoever on my bed-fellow. But miraculously, I am far more tolerant of the nasal orchestration to my right...

Amazingly, feeling fine...

Welsh Matters...

You wouldn't say I was partisan would you? I have found these eggs and to be honest, I can't say they taste any different to any other egg I've ever eaten. But I like the name and the graphics, and I'm hoping they will turn me into a prop forward for the Scarlets (Up the Scarlets! ) Llanelli's rugby team which supplies vast numbers of players for the Welsh national team.
So really, while I am only Welsh in terms of my parentage, I am interested in anything Welsh. Like the woollen mill at Melin Tregwynt, and Welsh cakes (not the same from Waitrose). Male Voice choirs. (May they all remain 100% male and none of this Me too stuff ). Tom Jones (in his hey-day for her); Katherine Jenkins (any day, for Him).

So last week, when The Sunday Times suggested a Welsh drama, Keeping Faith, that could rival the Scandi noir that we've all taken to, I was intrigued. It had been broadcast in English and Welsh. The lead actress, Eve Myles, is English but had wanted the part so badly she had learnt Welsh for it. (Impressive, good-girl.) It had only a week to go on I-player, so we gave it some welly.  Well'e didn't, because he fell asleep in the final episode. No stamina. I thought that it might have had English subtitles, and that we would hear the spoken Welsh, but no. Ours was, naturally, the English version.

I really wanted to love it, but it was all a bit too much. Too much passion. I'm not talking nudity, but hwyl. For me, I confess, it all needed to be toned down a notch. I couldn't help feeling that it would have played much better in Welsh, somehow.This got me thinking about the smattering of Welsh I learnt as child.
Today I looked up where I could take Welsh lessons.
I expect the moment will pass. Most of my moments do, if I sit very still.
Maybe, I'll just keep eating the eggs instead. Up the Scarlets!

Bank Holiday Weekend May 2018...

  What an absolute beauty of a Bank Holiday weekend. Bluebells and blue skies in Rutland. I shouldn't really tell you about Rutland because it ought to be kept a secret. It is the tiniest county in the UK. Each year we visit Rutland Water, a reservoir. We walk around it, navigating sheep and cyclists, and listening to silence that is only interrupted by birdsong. For us townies it is, as Dearest says every year, "Soul Food". A cliché  which irritates me, as  it is also a reminder that he is yet again thinking of his next meal. Which is very tough on someone who is studiously not. But I have to confess that there is more than an ounce of truth in every cliché, and so I wholeheartedly agree that this place soothes the battered spirit.
And is, thankfully, short on battered cod.

Take me home, country roads..

Man-training Has to Start Young....

The day loomed large in the diary. The date, as it it got nearer, seemed to vibrate with significance in a small household in Buckingham. And in particular, caused trepidation in the heart of its youngest member. (Discounting the dog who, if such matters interest you, wasn't bothered in the slightest.) This was the week when eight-year-old Joseph would go on an outward bound activity camp with his year group for three days and two nights.
Well, the chap was nervous. His mother was also nervous, but masked her anxiety by buying him new wet-weather gear, new underpants that bore no trace of SpiderMan (so un-cool now) and new wellies. The bag was packed, stuffed full, and the intrepid young man set off on Monday morning without so much as a kiss goodbye, or a backward glance. The same child who had assured his mother, the night before, that he was "Way beyond nervous," and on the morning of departure that he "wouldn't mind too much" if he was late and missed the bus.
The weather, the next two days, was atrocious, but we all knew he had ample changes of clothing.
He returned yesterday afternoon, in one piece, lugging his small suitcase and saying that he didn't fancy doing it again next year, thanks very much.
Gradually, fortified by food and drink he began to reveal more positive aspects of his mini-adventure, and his mother was relieved that it hadn't been a complete disaster. She steeled herself to open the suitcase which she fondly imagined would be stuffed with disgustingly muddy clothes. Instead of which, under a towel she found everything pristine. Suspiciously, in the manner that  she had packed herself.
"Joseph," she called, "Are you wearing the same pants that you wore on Monday?"
He answered ruefully, "'Fraid so.."
"And your socks?"
"I towel-dried them each night. I couldn't find any of my stuff..."
It had been astonishingly invisible under the towel. Oh Lord. Oh my dear Lord. When I heard that, I wasn't so worried about his wonging underwear. No, not at all. It was perfectly obvious that this was an inherited trait. From his grandfather. Sorry, let me be clear, in case you think my Dearest husband has a weakness for re-cycled underwear. It has taken him years to understand that you look under and behind when doing a search. He is so much better than he used to be. However, as for Buckingham...
Early training must start at once.

Dearest, after 38 years of training now searches under the top layer

Have you tried my Cow Pie...?

My late mother-in-law was a Cow Pie aficionado. More familiarly known as Cottage pies, we called them this because they were always Desperate Dan size, big enough to feed an army. Minced beef that had been minced until it had become almost a Pâté . (A sure sign that she had minced the left-over beef from the Sunday roast, at least the week before. So vintage was always a little uncertain.) Enshrouded in pale, slightly yellowing mashed potato. This would be delivered to greet us after we had come home from holiday, or simply just because she never came empty-handed.

One New Year she delivered a Turkey Pie. It was the fifth  of January, so the provenance  of this here turkey was in no doubt at all. I thanked her and put it to the back of the fridge. Where of course, finding the effort and flagrant waste of binning it quickly, simply too much, I let it remain. Until she turned up on the hop, one afternoon. She was collecting her dishes from all her daughters-in-law.  The children looked at me, as they knew that the dubious turkey pie had remained in situ. I gave them a look which suggested that she needed to be engaged in conversation while I disappeared.

I ran upstairs to the bathroom with the pie. With my bare hands I scooped out the mush and meat and put it in the bathroom bin. Washed it out and rubbed it dry with a towel. I reckon 90 seconds the whole operation. The children's faces were astounded as I returned with such speed, clutching a shiny dish, professing it had been delicious.

These days, I find myself making Cow Pies for all and sundry. Made with best quality minced beef, and sometimes with a slug of wine thrown in, should there be any to hand. Seeing my octogenarian friend, Joy Burton? Bunch of flowers and a Cow pie. Going  to Buckingham or Belsize? Cow Pie.
Broken arm? Cow Pie. It is my personal panacea. Please God, let no one call it my signature dish..

I am turning into my mother-in-law when I  complain that all my smaller dishes are out on loan.
I will however, be checking bathroom bins wherever I deliver, very carefully in future. You know, just in case..

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones...let's praise the NHS!

So a new baby has been born. A royal one. When a friend told me Kate had gone into hospital on Monday, I had to ask, Kate who? Anyway, suffice to say the new baby has a name, Louis.  Not to be confused with King Louis (of the Jungle) which was the only Louis my colourist had ever heard of. So is it Louis, as in the French Louis, or Louis as in the English Lewis? Who knows? I haven't listened to the news since the big announcement, so cannot verify. Anyway, my colourist was disappointed, as she thought they might have gone for something alternative like Milo. (Sign of a mis-spent youth watching Tweenies, obvs.)
So I nail my lack of royal-watching to the mast, as I deal with a week of broken bones. And what a pile there was. First up, or rather down for the count, was my dear friend Beverley who took a nose dive and broke her arm on the streets of London. An oblique fracture. Which to the likes of you and me, means vertical and exceptionally painful. Three and half hours in a fracture clinic today, she emerged with a state-of-the-art sling and the the stoical heroism of one who will learn to manage with one arm for as long as it takes.
Then our Lewis, playing rugby on Sunday broke his neck. To break one's neck was a threat that my mother issued as a warning to either of us venturesome children, with the implication that it meant death. Thankfully, in this instance, it has resulted in painkillers and a neck brace, plus a four-day stay in hospital. No more Rugby for Lew. But he will be fine.
Yesterday, at Slimming World, one of our members cycled, as usual, to our morning class, and collapsed upon arrival. An ambulance arrived within ten minutes, followed by a helicopter which whisked him off to intensive care.
In each case, the beleaguered National Health service playing a vital role in our daily lives. We should stop occasionally to count our blessings.

Milo says three cheers for the NHS and is hoping Meghan will name hers after him

Bad Behaviour..

I was standing on the platform at Finchley Road yesterday. Minding my own business, waiting for the tube. A group of three youths were dodging about near me. One of them stood on my foot. I turned and said,
"Steady!"
Couldn't have been a gentler admonishment. You agree? Absolutely. Matter closed? But no.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh! You hurt me! You paedophile!" came the response.
I looked the little toe-rag the eye and and gave him one of my burners and I did not look away until he ran off with his mates.
When I got home, I gave myself the same steely-eyed glare when I looked in the mirror. Damn well scared myself. I hope that my evil eye was the last thing the little bastard saw before he went to sleep last night.
But I think that's probably wishful thinking on my part.

Hedging my bets...

Who'd have thought it was twelve weeks or thereabouts since Christmas? That was the last time I visited Gustav, and my hair has been looking like a topiary in need of a buzz cut. I exaggerate, of course. My hair was showing softer contours, something of which my mother would have approved. However, when short hair reaches a certain tipping point, you get up every morning looking as if you've spent the night on a ghost train.
It was a gorgeous day in Marylebone. Whilst the sun was giving it its best shot, it was still cool in the shade of buildings. Two hours with Gustav and I emerge sharper, and sassier from badinage and re-shaping.
I return home and Lillie next door, pops up from behind the hedge which she has been trimming. Now Lil is my kind of gardener: an all or nothing girl. She had been giving it some, all day in full sun. Well, she is more than a little Italian. She is also a hairdresser and there I was, with my newly coiffed locks.
She noticed immediately, of course. We've talked of this before and I have expressed my unwavering allegiance to Gustav F.
"I could do that for you, and just as well," she started.
"Ah, but I would hurt Gustav enormously if I jumped ship, Lillie." I replied.
"No, I understand," she said, "my clients say the same thing to me."
Ever so slightly uncomfortable, I said, "Well Lil, when I''m old and frail..."
"Then I'll tell you to fuck off!" she said.
And we fell about laughing.

On the hottest day of the year..

I just love a good statistic. I could just say that it has been bloody hot today. Which if you are are fellow Brit, I won't be telling you anything you don't already know. 6.15pm and it's currently 28 degrees. The hottest April day in seventy years. Delightfully abnormal and we're all running around like  a dog with two tails and barking at postmen. Yes, a little unusual sunshine and we go bonkers.
Well, I decided to put the clement weather to good use. We have waved goodbye to the painters which means that finally I had to tackle the restoration of the garden. A small courtyard affair,  nothing grand.
The patio is mostly in the shade of the house, apart from a couple of hours of direct sunshine, so inevitably the paving gradually takes on the green verdigris of light moss and algae. It can only be removed with a jet-wash. Today was the day. It's a bit like childbirth, you forget how awful a job it is. What I hadn't factored in, was that the grouting between the paving slabs is shot, which means that the gaps between the paving have become repositories for soil and miscellaneous crap. Very soon it became apparent that this clean-up job was getting a whole lot messier as I jet-propelled aforementioned miscellaneous crap all over my newly-painted white walls. They looked as if they had been target practice for a murder of crows.
One job spawning three more. I am done in.
Just call me Hyacinth..

Why talk about Bunions in a Bunion Blog?

This is a question which haunts me from time to time. Then the way to deal with any hovering spectre is to turn on the light and ignore it. There are far more interesting things to talk about than your bunions, or slightly more fascinating, my bunions. (One ex-bunion on the left and one incipient but not critical one, on the right. If you're doing a bunion audit, by any any chance?  I thought not.)

For the unbunionated, the topic of bunions is boring. For the bunionated, or Bunionistas, as a preferable term, bunions are a source of constant discomfort that sometimes reach such a crescendo of pain that one is driven to decision-making. Should you have the damn things lopped off or do you continue to stagger around wearing flattie strappy sandals that let them poke out, or squeeze them into shoes in the vain hope they will make comfortable bunion-pockets either side and enable you to walk around with a smile, instead of looking as though you have swallowed lemon juice?

In January 2016 I had a bunion operation. Around this time I thought I would write a Bunion Blog to chart my experience in the hope that it would give some insight to those teetering on the surgery decision.  Obviously I ran out of stuff to say about bunions as bunions, frankly, took a back seat in my life. But by this time, I had got into a writing habit and enjoyed keeping a diary. Instead of looking for another title I blundered on with TGBB because I was rather fond of it. The only snag is that people searching for bunion blogs come across mine. They read the latest post and think why is this mad woman banging on about her life, with nary a word written about her bunions?

This was brought home to me by a recent comment from Ms C.Yan of Singapore who wrote:
"Where is bunion?"
Where is bunion indeed? So I helpfully directed her to the start of the blog where she could find plenty of bunion talk. So I am writing this post as a sign-post, really, to weary Bunionistas in search of hard core information. Go back to the beginning!

For everyone else who has remained with me so far, I thank you for your loyal readership. I hope I sometimes make you smile. I certainly don't set out to make you think. There are too many other things going on in the world to do that.

Taking a cold shower... is soooo good for you...

As a schoolgirl, I would eschew any physical activity whenever I could, to avoid breaking out into a sweat. All I wanted to do was sit, read and learn. And talk, of course. PE was a complete anathema to me, whether it was the sheer pointlessness of running up and down a lacrosse pitch, or thwacking footlessly at shuttlecocks that never reached my racquet. Swimming? You got hopelessly wet. And had to drag your clothes back on over a half-damp body with only five minutes to reach your Chemistry class in time. Mainly because the fiendishly flame-haired McCann, had insisted that you did not use the steps and hoisted yourself unaided out of the pool using upper-arm strength only. No wonder I hated it. I can still feel the score marks on those meaty thighs. So no, a cold shower was something that I used to dodge wherever possible, on the basis that I was still as fragrant as a rose.

Yesterday I read about the virtues of cold baths. I had no idea they could be so therapeutic. The claim is that they boost  the immune system; they stimulate circulation; they improve hair and skin, and they are good for those suffering from depression because they are mood-enhancing. Oh, and I forgot to mention, FAT-busting, in that they speed up your metabolism. I ask you, what is not to love in that list?

So yesterday morning, I took my first cold shower. Yes, a shower, not a bath, as I thought I would do this in sensible stages. So first I turned on the shower. Not bad, I thought. Luke warm. Stuck a shoulder underneath. I will turn it down a bit. Whoah! Colder? Yes, I can do colder. Few more seconds to acclimatise. Does this thing go any colder?
YEEEES IT DOES! I gave an operatic shriek. I think I was a high E or even an F. Or maybe even a blend of the two.
Well now, I felt really warm and vibrant when I'd dried off. Felt great all day. So much so that I waited until I had the house to myself before having my second shower this morning. Because I find that if I sing loudly, in the way of a medieval plain-song, if you're interested (not that I have any experience of this, but I've never let that hold me back) I can distract myself from the breathtaking impact of the cold water. By God, the acoustics in our shower room are something else. I sound marvellous.

Actually, self-praise is no recommendation ,as my dear Mama used to say, but what I have just done is to remind myself that unless I re-adjust the dial right now, there will be no medieval plain-song emitting from the bathroom tomorrow morning when Dearest does his ablutions. No, I would expect to hear a veritable Anglo-Saxon roar. Glad you reminded me.

Dial it down if you dare!