I don’t want to think that winter has really arrived and is
here to stay, because I know that it is going to go on until February or March
, but I think I will have to admit the fact – Winter is here to stay! The past
week has been one of minus temperatures with day times hardly getting above 5
degrees and night times going down to -8. That’s cold! To combat the cold, and
to avoid having to stoke the fire all the time, we spend large chunks of the
day in our bedroom which has a heater on and so is warm. The bathroom is also
well heated so we can dash between the two easily. It is really only hunger that
eventually drives us downstairs to find some food. This is definitely colder
than last year and the weather office will bear this out On each days forecast
there is a section on the history of records and it gives us the temperature on
this day last year and what the normal expected temperature should be. It is
definitely colder than last year!
We have used the time to do some indoor chores and when
Courtney came home for the weekend she put up our little Christmas Tree and some
decorations so the lounge now looks quite festive. The trees around the square
have also now been decorated so that looks quite festive too. We are not sure
if it is our imagination or not but we feel that after the recent outbursts in
the UK about putting Christ back into Christmas, a number of businesses that
advertise on TV are telling us to ‘Have a happy Christmas’ rather than a ‘Happy
Festive Season’; Blackpool has switched on its Christmas Lights where as last
year they switched on the Festive lights and we expect to see any moment that
the Oxford Street Christmas Lights are on. You may not all agree with me but I
think this is wonderful.
Most of the supermarkets here have an ‘English Shelf’ where
a number of particularly British goods are displayed. This is where I always
find my Bisto Instant gravy powder and until recently, Skiippy peanut butter.
Skippy has now been promoted to the general shelves, I am pleased to note. This
week I also found custard powder for the first time and, joy of joys, Christmas
Fruit Mincemeat for our mince pies. They also have a comprehensive selection of
Asian goodies which is where I find things like sweet chili sauce and Chinese
noodles., It is a brilliant idea.
I am sure that I have said this before but the pharmaceutical
companies and the chemists here really bug me. Between us, Neels and I take 8
tablets day. That is rather a lot to keep track of. In South Africa we were
given exactly the number we needed per month, the pharmacist carefully counting
out the number required and then labelling the container with the dose for each.
So it made no difference to us if the original container held 100 tablets or
ten – we were always given the amount necessary for a month. Here they have a
different approach. If you have been prescribed 30 tablets for a month but said
tablets only come in boxes of 28, they will give you two boxes. This means that
at the end of the month you still have 26 tablets over, but they are tablets
you take all the time so you just continue to take them and after 26 days you
go for a repeat. But the chemist then
wants to repeat all the tablets on your prescription, some of which came in
boxes of 20, 28, 10, 30, 60 or 90! And they all run out at different times. And they don’t label anything! They do,
however, give you a printout of the prescription for you to work out for
yourself. I am impressed by the level of intelligence they credit to all the
citizens of this country! All I know is that I find it very frustrating and
disorganised to have my medications so higgeldy-piggeldy all the time. And I
often wonder how many old dears have taken the wrong tablets at the wrong time.
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