"Ratrex"

Really I wanted to produce a spoof ad using Microsoft Image Creator (AI)  but certain words are vetoed by that system, including Trump, Republican Party and condom. I suspect that the current but very occasional resident of The White House would find a discreet private use for "RATREX" condoms or maybe he already uses these:-

or these:-

Haircut

"Monks" barbershop, Abbey Lane

This morning, I had the idea of walking to my favoured barbershop in the Woodseats suburb of the city. Normally I drive over there. It's more than two miles and there are a couple of hills to contend with. I gave myself plenty of time - setting off a full hour and twenty minutes before my appointment slot.

Down Carterknowle Road, along Bannerdale Road to Archer Road and then up Fraser Road to Holmhirst Road. I arrived on the main drag at Woodseats well ahead of time and marched into the KFC outlet where I ordered a Diet Pepsi to quench my thirst. Then it was on to the barbershop. The same fellow has been cutting my hair for twelve years.

"Usual Neil?" he always says and I confirm that I do not want a perm, highlights or a crewcut. I probably have my mop of hair cut every two months. Since schooldays, I have never worn my hair short. Blame The Beatles!

The barber is called Danny. He's 48 years old and happily married with two children. I guess I have got to know him pretty well through our conversations at the barber's chair. He is a very experienced hairdresser  and takes real pride in his work even though he himself is as bald as a coot. He always does a good job.

After the haircut, I walked along the main drag to a food outlet called "Urban Pitta". Their freshly made filled pittas are very scrumptious. I ate mine while sitting in the window with a can of Diet Coke, watching the world go by outside.

Then I checked out the book sections in a couple of charity shops but no luck! I was seeking a particular novel by one of the Brontë sisters - "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë, written in 1848 in The Parsonage at Haworth when Anne was just twenty eight.

I decided to catch a No.75 bus into the centre of the city and headed straight for the "Waterstones" bookshop in Orchard Square. Fortunately, they had one remaining paperback copy of the novel I was after.

At around two thirty, I caught a No.88 bus back home.

Later I was in the B&Q D.I.Y. superstore looking for a galvanised bucket in which to place our repotted aspidistra. There I met up again with a man who has worked in the store for twenty two years. Our main conversation topic is always rats.

They target bird food and grass seed and it is an ongoing battle to suppress them. It was nice to hear my "friend" say that he does not like killing any animals - even rats  and wished B&Q would use rat contraception methods. I joked that I would not volunteer to be the one to put the rat-sized condoms on the little blighters!

Self-Assessment

WARNING In this blogpost, your friendly correspondent drones on about personal health matters. If you find such subject matter tedious then I suggest that you depart immediately. Don't say I didn't warn you.

⦿

Till last October, I was quite proud to declare to anybody who cared to listen that I had never needed any regular medication and I felt as fit as a fiddle.  Not bad for a seventy one year old. Then - almost by chance - it was discovered that my blood pressure was too high - high enough to threaten me with a potential  stroke or heart issue. This is why I went along with the idea of trying to reduce my blood pressure with anti-hypertensive drugs.

I have had more doctor's appointments in the past nine months than I previously had in the rest of my life. Different doctors working at my local health centre have played around with my cocktail that includes the following - doxazosin, indapamide, ramipril, amlodopine and atorvastatin. Different strengths and different combinations.

Along the way I have had half a dozen blood tests and I have also been monitoring my own blood pressure with my "Omiron" machine that I bought from "Boots" last autumn. It has been quite a journey I can tell you.

On Tuesday of this week I had another doctor's appointment and at last my blood pressure readings had reached an average score that was within the NHS target zone for my age and gender -  136/69. Hurrah! However, there was a new problem to contend with - namely oedema in both my feet - undoubtedly caused by one of the medications but which one?

When I wake in the morning my feet are almost back to normal but as the day progresses, the swelling and fluid build-up in my legs has become so noticeable that I struggle to put on my most comfortable boots and shoes. I am not in pain as I write this blogpost but I can feel the tightness  and bulging in my lower legs.

As a consequence of this, the doctor wanted to investigate what might happen if I removed amlodopine from my anti-hypertensive cocktail. Well  ironically, one of things that is bound to happen is that my blood pressure will rise again but will I also see the oedema disappear? It's not something I have ever suffered from before - apart from stepping off long distance flights when not wearing pressure stockings.

Another issue that is of concern is my weight. Frankly, I weigh too much and it would be good for me in several ways if I could lose about three stones (42 pounds/ 19 kilograms). This has made me start thinking about weight-reducing medication. I am not entitled to receive it freely via the NHS because my BMI does not qualify for that kind of intervention.

The doctor checked my current medications and said that in principle there would be no problem with me also taking a weight reducing drug like tirzepatide (Mounjaro). I am thinking about it and of course googling it.

A bright spot on Tuesday was the discovery that my blood sugar score in relation to Type 2 diabetes has fallen - probably due to me cutting out sugar from hot drinks. Now I am almost embarrassed to admit that I have come to enjoy mint tea!

Husbandry

How long have we had this aspidistra? Certainly more than twenty years. It has suffered a lot of neglect and has had to endure long periods without being watered. If there was an organisation that worked against cruelty to houseplants, I would have been prosecuted long ago and shamed in local newspapers. "Guilty your honour!"

Aspidistras were very popular in English drawing rooms in the late Victorian era. The plant's natural homeland is  South East Asia and southern China. There it is and was mostly found in shady areas of sub-tropical forests. It is not fond of bright sunlight.

Aspidistras are great survivors and to be truthful they easily endure the kind of neglect that I have subjected our old plant to.

On Monday, for the first time ever, I brought it downstairs and into the daylight where I repotted it using fresh compost mixed with good quality top soil. I also watered the leaves with a watering can - not something it has ever enjoyed before.

In this balmy summertime, I will leave the plant outside for a few days longer - protected from direct sunlight. Last night we had a rain shower and that won't have done the aspidistra any harm at all.

I dealt with another plant on Monday. The bay tree outside our kitchen had simply grown too tall over the years so I reduced it by two feet using clippers and a saw. It was obscuring our view up the garden from our main kitchen window. Now the top of the little tree looks rough but it won't be too long before new shoots and leaves begin to appear.

We bought that tree twenty one years ago from a school fayre at my kids' old secondary school (American: high school). Then it stood about  twelve inches tall in a little pot. It clearly loves the position where I planted  it but I sometimes fret about possible root-related  damage - another good reason for giving it a severe haircut.

Funtime

 

Over at "Shadows and Light", Tasker Dunham made this assertion: "I bet you've never seen a boat named Tasker." This rang a bell in my head so I looked back through my extensive photo archives and found the picture shown above. I took it at Cayton Bay on the Yorkshire coast several years ago. It was little more than a rotting hulk then and I am sure that by now it has - to use a Trumpian term - been "obliterated" by North Sea waves.

Another "Tasker" boat was spotted on the lake at Roundhay Park in Leeds. This sturdy red pleasure craft may be hired out for £12 per hour and was once rented by former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, nine months before their first son, Taska, was born.

Meantime, entering the port of Immingham on The River Humber, I once spotted this huge oil tanker that had arrived on our shores from Nigeria. Can you see the name on the bow? It's "King Tasker" usually known as King Tasker the Munificent who was, I believe, the leader of  the Igbo people with fourteen wives and 64 children. He also ran a worldwide e-mail scam, harvesting money from the gullible and unwary.

Over the years, I have seen several other boats named "Tasker" - including a battered aluminium canoe on Derwentwater in The Lake District and a grey, homemade inflatable packed with desperate migrants on the beach at Pevensey in  East Sussex. They were being helped ashore by two elderly American migrants who were squatting in a beachfront property at the time with their "land shark" - Fido.

"Butter"

The book cover is the colour of butter and just for good measure there's a cow there too. I was partly drawn to this novel by Asako Yuzuki because it is Japanese and I know so little about Japan. However, I had previously read three novels in translation by Haruki Murakami which I very much enjoyed.

At the core of this work of fiction is a seed pod from reality - the strange case of  Kanae Kijima, the Konkatsu Killer who was sentenced to death in 2010 for the killing of at least four men. By the way, she still languishes in a Tokyo jail as appeals follow appeals. There is little hard evidence to condemn her but a lot of intelligent supposition.

The main protagonist in "Butter" is Rika Machita, a young journalist on a Tokyo lifestyle and news magazine. She manages to get an interview with Manako Kajii - the man killer - and this interest becomes increasingly obsessive.

Asako Yuzuki

Kajii had prepared fine meals for her alleged victims and food starts to play a much bigger part in Rika's life than it had ever done before. For example, she discovers how delightful good quality butter can prove to be in a range of recipes - including a simple bowl of rice.

I reached the last page (page 452) out in our sunny garden just this afternoon. Shirley asked me if I had enjoyed it and I said that "enjoyed" would not be the right word. I had appreciated it and it was good to spend time in Japanese culture with the author. Really, it was a pretty weird story and at times the references to Japanese foodstuffs was confusing. There were no footnotes to explain.

Finally, a big shout out to Polly Barton who translated "Butter" from Japanese into English. A good translator does much more than telling us what the words mean. He or she is also a creator, honing what is literal into something with shape and body and oodles of butter...

Polly Barton

Summer

                                                                                                                                    ©Bernadine Richey

Summer. What a joy it is to be alive when a real summer is happening.

Up at "The Hammer Pincers" car park, Mike and I waited for his wife Jill to arrive in their silver Honda car. It was almost ten thirty but the western skies were still so filled with summer light that nighttime was again struggling to take command.

I was wearing my navy blue "Yorkshire Pudding" T-shirt, faded blue shorts and walking sandals. The  temperature was so balmy that I did not feel any kind of chill.

Once again, we had won the pub quiz with knowledge and cunning. Though Mike and I had no idea, our friend Mick - back from a week in Skegness - knew that Luke Skywalker piloted an X-wing fighter plane in "Starwars" (1977).

Earlier, I made Sunday dinner for the family. It was leg of pork this time with new potatoes, roasted carrots, purple-sprouting broccoli, mixed vegetables, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. This was followed by a superb raspberry cheesecake that Shirley had made from scratch. The slices stood four inches tall and were most delicious and summery.

Afterwards, I lay on the lawn looking up at winging swallows, the cumulus clouds and the blue sky beyond. Little Margot and Phoebe came to join me for a while, riding upon the chest of  The Grandpa Beast at the very end of June and laughing like monkeys under that summer sky.

Summer - easing, placating, kindly smoothing out as though there might be no tomorrow. And it feels very good to be alive, hardly bothering to count the days until the first frost of autumn along our unstoppable journey to wintertime.