Bits and pieces

[shewhomust]

I started this post on Tuesday evening, when durham_rambler had gone out to a meeting, and I was free to entertain myself. This would have been a perfect opportunity to post something substantial: what a waste, that there wasn't have anything substantial that I wanted to write just then. But I did have a collection of fragments that I wanted to get out of my head (by getting them onto the page). I had written the first three by the time durham_rambler returned; so if I add two more now, this will be a post, won't it?

• We did, eventually, have tea with S, last Thursday. We failed to attend her post-Christmas party, because we were snowed in; we failed to connect at Phantoms (ghost story event) because of a conflicting committment; she failed to come here after a meeting two months running, both times because she couldn't face the journey (weather / train disruptions). But on Thursday we combined a visit to S. with me attending my (graphic novels) book group in person, so that was two good things in one. S. not only gave us proper afternoon tea with little cakes and her own bread, she also invited G-N to join us - and then I sloped off to the library and talked about Star Wars comics...



• One of the pills I take to control my diabetes has gone out of favour. A couple of years ago, the practice nurse at the GP's surgery suggested I stop taking it, and I tried, but felt unwell - the sort of unwell I feel if I have eaten too much sugar - so I went back to the pill. Now the practice has resumed the campaign: it seems that this particular pill can cause hypos, and my blood sugar is low enough that they don't feel the risk is justified. We compromised: I would halve the dose (by cutting the tablets in half, which is fiddly) for a couple of months, then go in for a blood test. Yesterday an actual GP (Dr. Fleming, in case I need to remember this) telephoned, to say that the blood sugar reading on that test was actually lower than my previous reading, and I should discontinue that pill altogether. The reading, she said, had gone down from 5.1 to 49: there is no missing decimal point there, there are readings on two different scales, and no, she couldn't do the calculation necessary to give me both readings on either scale. I should be pleased that my blood sugar is low... Anyway, I'm due a review in April, so we'll see how it goes.



• Is the tide turning back towards Dreamwidth? In the last couple of days, not one but two friends who had gone elsewhere for their social media have reappeared: welcome back, weegoddess and fjm!



• One reason why I didn't make more progress on Tuesday is that I kept being distracted by things I wanted to ask the internet. One arose from a recent conversation I had had with boybear: he had talked about a project he was involved with, and quoted Charles Aznavour's La Bohème. I did not know this song, but YouTube did.
  
  
  Watch on YouTube
  
  
  I can take or leave the song, but I love the retro views of Montmartre: starting at the carousel in the place Louise Michel. How long is it since I was in Paris? (Too long.)



• But we have booked a week in Orkney this summer. D. will celebrate his birthday with a stay at a Landmark property in Aberdeenshire, and once you're going to Aberdeenshire, you might as well go to Orkney, mightn't you? It turns out not to be quite a simple as that, because of the ferry timetables, but we will drive up to the north coast, ferry to Stromness, stay at a guesthouse in Finstown for a few days and then at a fancy hotel in Kirkwall for the weekend, before getting the night ferry back to Aberdeen. So we will arrive on the morning of D.'s birthday. I haven't yet decided where I want to break the journey north- and south-bound, but I'm thinking about it...