Losehill

 
Yesterday I was left on my own. Shirley had headed out to a regional meeting of The Women's Institute in which she is quite involved. 

The sun was shining again and I was ready for some exercise. I didn't wish to travel far so soon I was back in the village of Hope. I parked Clint by the primary school and laced up my walking boots. My target destination was the summit of Losehill - often written Lose Hill. It stands 1,562 feet above sea level.

The last time I aimed for the top, snow was covering the entire Hope Valley. Beyond Lose Hill Farm the snow was compacted and very slippery so sensibly I turned back. This time the land was dry and new lambs were frolicking in some of the green fields.

Three men - presumably volunteers - were installing a brand new gate on the pathway and I complimented them on their work. 

A good thing about solitary walking is that you can pause whenever you want to without having to apologise or explain to anybody else. You find your own pace and yesterday afternoon I was very much in the mood for an easy ascent.

On the way up, I met Rod and Eleanor from Norfolk. They were in Derbyshire on holiday. At the top, they asked me to take a photo of them using Eleanor's smartphone. I am useless with those things. The camera has an on-screen "button" but whenever I press, the camera seems to refuse to click. This time it took three gos before I actually registered an image.

It was much easier coming down - no need for little stops to catch my breath. I had been away from Clint for two and a half hours but I had had a good workout. Blood had pumped through my veins and I felt righteously tired. There was a flask of water in Clint's boot (American: trunk) and I poured half of it down my neck before returning home to make a chicken stir fry with boiled rice for our tea (Elsewhere: dinner or supper).

Mission

Before we left North Wales, there was something that I just had to do. This involved a sixteen mile drive south to the scenic inland village of Betws-y-Coed on the A470. Fortunately, Shirley agreed to my proposal.

Many years ago, we bought an original landscape painting at The Great Sheffield Artshow and then three or four years later we bought another picture of what appeared to be the very same scene. The subject of both was "The Fairy Glen" just outside Betws-y-Coed.

We had tried to get there before on our way to The Isle of Anglesey but frustratingly we had lost our way and given up. This time I was determined to make it. The idea of  actually visiting The Fairy Glen had been gnawing away at me like a weevil and I knew that if I didn't go this time, that weevil would continue to burrow.

Again, the location was not easy to find. To access The Fairy Glen you must cross private land and you pay for the privilege. At the path gate, the farmer's wife waited to grab our money and she wasn't even remotely interested in my tale of our two paintings. She wasn't giving out ticket receipts so you wonder how the tax people can harvest their dues. The farm is called Cwmanog Isaf.

The Fairy Glen is in effect a deep cleft in the land, a rocky gorge through which a tributary of The River Conwy flows. To get down there, you have to negotiate a series of rough slate steps. It would be very easy to  tumble down them for they are quite precipitous and there is no handrail. However, we made it.

And there we were - standing in the very scene that has hung upon our walls for years now.  Because Great Britain has had virtually no rain in the last six weeks, the little river that flows through Fairy Glen was way down  - dribbling by instead of gushing.

But I didn't mind. The light was good and the glen felt quite magical. I took several pictures but this was probably the best of them...

Mission accomplished - we could now drive home.

Westward

In relation to our long weekend in Llandudno, if you hoped that one blogpost  - including three images - was all that you were going to get, then you are sorely mistaken. As Oliver Twist said, "More please!"

The Great Orme headland rises steeply above the town. To get up there you have a few options to pick from. Famously, you can ride in a Victorian tramcar and that is what we chose to do. Transport buff Andrew from Melbourne would no doubt have been wetting himself with excitement.

Close to the triangulation pillar at the very summit, we met a retired lone traveller from Brisbane, Australia. She had never seen a trig point before and I had to give her a rudimentary explanation before she handed me her smartphone to snap her souvenir picture. 

Within sight of the summit I was keen to locate Lletty'r Filiast which is an ancient burial place that dates back in time some 5,000 years. Translated into modern English, the Welsh name means Lair of the Greyhound Bitch. However, I guess that when it was first constructed the site had no name. The great stones would have concealed the deceased and then earth would have formed a mound over the structure.

With some difficulty, we found the ancient "cromlech". Two donkeys were grazing nearby and one of them was drawn to my whistling. He brayed loudly at the sky before staring suspiciously at the intruder in his field...

Lletty'r Filiast

On Sunday morning, we paid a voluntary toll of £5.60 to drive Clint round The Great Orme's five mile long perimeter road - Marine Drive. Fortunately, it's one way traffic only but in any case we hardly saw any other vehicles. As well as detouring up to St Tudno's church, I also spotted the old Great Orme's Head lighthouse building. Nowadays it offers B&B accommodation with spectacular views over The Irish Sea...

On Monday morning, I woke early and decided to stroll round the corner from our accommodation to the hospice where John Gray works. On the off-chance of success, I thought I would just see if his trusty vehicle Bluebell was in the car park but - as on Saturday night - it wasn't there. However, I thought that blog visitors might like to see the hospice itself - situated on a quiet back street in the lee of The Great Orme...

Finally, here's a sunset picture taken from West Shore - where we were staying - as our orb sinks yet again behind The Isle of Anglesey, travelling forever westward...

Llandudno

Back home from Llandudno. We had a lovely time over there in gorgeous, sunny weather.

In the Welsh language, the prefix "Llan" means church. High above the town on The Great Orme - the rocky headland that overlooks it - there is a very old church that is dedicated to Saint Tudno. Thus the name "Llandudno" means "Church of Saint Tudno".

We visited that church on Sunday morning and wandered around its graveyard - high above The Irish Sea. It was there that I spotted this hawthorn tree, bent by the prevailing south west wind...

The top picture shows two women walking along the promenade by the town's North Bay. Behind them you can see the Victorian pier and The Grand Hotel. What really caught my eye was their three-wheeled "rollators" - for they were bedecked with small cuddly toys. These weren't for sale. Perhaps the women had won them playing bingo. Anyway, it was something that they clearly had in common and it seemed a cheery thing to do.

People-watching on the prom - there were many sights to see. Here an Asian family up from Coventry for the day. There a yellow-helmeted child on a small bicycle with stabilisers. A fat man waddles along with tattoos on his calves. A young mother berates a small boy for throwing stones. In one of the seafront shelters we meet Harry aged 95. He lives in a two-bedroom apartment that looks out over the bay. He has a happy face and a happy disposition even though his wife of sixty years died three years ago.

Below you can see a castle - it's Conwy Castle - built under the instructions of King Edward I between 1283 and 1287 during his campaign to conquer Wales. It's a very fine castle - just three miles from Llandudno, it overlooks The River Conwy and its walls encircle the little town of Conwy. I know that many North American and Australian visitors like to see a nice castle and Conwy Castle is certainly one of the best:-

Away

Our rental in Llandudno

Health appointments have been coming thick and fast for me. If it's not one thing it's another. They have prevented us from planning holiday time away. It would have been a great opportunity to go just now as Frances, Stew, Phoebe and Margot are presently in western Australia visiting Stew's brother Richard, his Australian wife Cindy and their two children. They live in the suburbs of Perth.

However, today I booked three nights in Llandudno, North Wales. Our spring weather has been stunning for the past two weeks and it is predicted to carry on like this for several more days. It would have been a shame not to take a little advantage of it before my next doctor's appointment on Tuesday.

I have been to Llandudno before but it was long ago. There's a hospice there now - where John Gray works. I e-mailed him earlier - suggesting meeting up but I haven't heard back yet.

To tell you the truth, I am nervous about meeting other bloggers. Knowing them via a computer screen is one thing but seeing them in the flesh is another. Will they measure up? Will I measure up? It's a funny thing. I have met three other bloggers in "real life" before and all went very well. They were happy events.

I have "known" John Gray for about fifteen years and have followed his blog story. I admire the fact that he wears his heart on his sleeve and is open about his life and feelings. It's no surprise that hundreds of others have great affection for him and "Going Gently". Apart from anything else, he's a funny guy.

Today I had to go back to the garage on Sharrow Vale Road to get Clint's window washers fixed. I was there by eight fifteen. I said to the mechanics, "Will I need to go home or can I just go for breakfast and come back?" I knew the job would be a quick one.

"Oh you'll need to go home and wait for a call".

So I trudged a mile, back up the hill that is Ecclesall Road. As soon as I got home, Shirley said, "Oh, the garage have just been on the phone. The car's ready!"

Grrr!

If I ruled the world, stuff like this would never happen.

And so, yeah, we'll be heading west tomorrow - setting off mid-morning. No blogposts have been "scheduled" so this humble Yorkshire blog will be in mothballs until Monday night. As they say in Wales, "ffarwel!" Can you guess what it means?

Quiztime

QUIZTIME WITH MEIKE

Today we have another guest quizsetter. It's my friend Meike from Ludwigsburg, Germany. Her long-running blog is called "From My Mental Library". You can find it here. As usual, the answers will be given in the comments section.

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1) What is the tallest free-standing structure in Great Britain? 

(a) Arqiva Tower (Emley Moor transmitting station) 

(b) The Shard  (Office block in London)  

(c) Brighton i360 (Observation tower in Brighton, Sussex) 

(d) Blackpool Tower (Constructed in the 1890s)

2) What is the African country of Swaziland now called? 

(a) Zimbabwe (b) Egypt (c) Narnia (d) Eswatini

3) Meike asks, "How many cyber attacks against hospitals in Germany were officially registered in one single week in November 2020?"

(a) 29 (b) 295 (c) 2,950 (d) 29,500

4) What is gelotology? 

(a) The study of the effects and uses of gelatine in food production.

(b) The study of rocks and how they form through 

both volcanic and sedimentary activity. 

(c) The study of laughter and its effects on the body, 

from a psychological and physiological perspective.

(d) The study of icebergs, glaciers and  ice sheets

5) Who is this woman? She was the first female artist  to top the British pop charts with a self-penned song - back in 1978.

6) What was the longest song that the Swedish pop group ABBA ever released? 

(a) "Eagle" (b) "Dancing Queen" (c) "Waterloo" (d) "Fernando"

7)  Worldwide, which female artist has sold more records than any other?

8) What does the L in Samuel L. Jackson stand for?

(a) Leviticus (b) Leonard (c) Leroy (d) Luke

9) Which film star  was born in 1921 in the USA, the eleventh of fifteen children of a poor family of immigrants from Lithuania. His birth name was Charles Dennis Buchinsky.

(a) Mickey Rooney   (b) Charles Bronson 

(c) Charlton Heston  (d) Marlon Brando

10) What is this? (clue - it is thought to be 3750 years old and was unearthed in Germany in 1999)

(a) The Frankfurt Frisbee (b) The Dusseldorf Drum 

 (c) The Stuttgart Shield (d) The Nebra Sky Disc

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That's it folks! How did you do?

Liberation

It's Liberation Day!

Hip hip hooray!

All of out troubles will fly away.

Tariff time is here at last -

Our future rises from the past

With thanks to number forty seven

America is bound for heaven.

So dance my fellow patriots

Dance and laugh and proudly sing

Liberation Day means everything!

Illumination

Lightning

Let me be gentle. No, I am not frothing at the mouth. Yes. Let me smile and provide the following guidance with cheery goodwill. After all - in the end - does it really matter? It's only symbols on paper. I am not blowing a gasket. No I am not.

In my defence, I will say this... I was an English teacher for thirty eight years. I marked thousands of books, assignments, exam papers, essays, stories, letters, fake job applications, poems, playscripts, answers to questions. They all passed under my bridge, like autumn leaves upon the surface of  a river.

One red pen said hello to a new red pen and another and another. Sometimes there were green pens - lines of them stretching out to the horizon. I was doing my best to help. Never belittling nor being superior. The ability to spell accurately is born into some of us but not into others. I know that very well.

The psychology of spelling is often interwoven with our sense of self.

And now I come to the main meat of this blogpost. Settle down everybody. I would like you to look at the following two words:-

lightning

&
lightening

Can you see how they are different from each other? The second one has an "e" in the middle, Not only do these words look different - they have very different meanings.

lightning  - This refers to the natural phenomenon of a bright flash of light in the sky during a storm, caused by a discharge of electricity. It is also widely used figuratively to describe fast movement. Examples:-

During the storm, a bolt of lightning hit the church tower.

The pop fans ran like lightning to the front of the auditorium.

lightening - This is connected with the verb "To lighten". That verb may concern either light or weight. 

Light examples:-

The make-up artist was busy lightening the actress's 

cheeks with some white powder.

Over in the east, I observed a subtle lightening of the 

clouds as night gave way to a new day.

Weight examples:-

At the airport, Pixie tried lightening her suitcase by 

removing her bowling ball.

Lightening one's mind may often be achieved by sharing one's troubles.

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So that's that. I thought that my teaching days were over but repeated evidence of lightning/lightening  confusion in the blogosphere caused me to dust off my mortarboard and academic gown  once more. Class dismissed.

Lightening

Colonoscopy

 

I feel sure that the title of this blogpost will have sent dozens of visitors fleeing to the hills. However, Yorkshire Pudding is a blog that does not shirk away from potentially unpleasant or controversial subjects. One day The 47th President of the USA, the next day a colonoscopy. Very similar subject matter when you stop to think about it.

Okay so why did I need a colonoscopy this morning? Let's recap. On the night of March 14th my face became a ghost's face and I fainted - collapsing on the floor in an unseemly heap. In addition, when I sat on the toilet shortly thereafter, I discovered that I had deposited bright red blood. This continued for the next twenty four hours. Both highly unusual events were most certainly linked to my first dose of an anti-hypertensive drug that was new to me. It is called doxazosin.

And so I was referred to The Royal Hallamshire Hospital for a colonoscopy which happened this very morning. Yesterday, I had to starve myself and drink two litres of a special polyethylene glycol-based laxative called "Moviprep". By the way, "Moviprep" has nothing to do with settling down on the sofa with a bucket of popcorn and a fizzy drink to watch a movie (British English: film). Instead, it has everything to do with effectively flushing out one's bowels ready for examination by a gastroenterologist.

And so I lay there with my knees up on the trolley as a nice Polish doctor called Anna pushed an endoscope way into my rear end. I was sedated and calm and I watched the entire show on a big colour screen without wincing with any kind of pain or discomfort. Surprisingly, there were no advertisements for "Bran Flakes". It was like a mini-starship was venturing  deep into a nether world in search of distant civilisations. I had never had a colonoscopy before.

They found a polyp that was cleverly removed with a tiny metal claw that lives right next to the camera lens. Anna's supervisor - an oriental gentleman with thinning hair and gold-rimmed spectacles said that he thought this might have been the source of the bleeding event. The polyp will be sent for analysis and I will later have a follow-up appointment to receive the informed verdict.

They put me in the recovery room for an hour and brought me a cup of tea and three bourbon biscuits. Because I had been given an intravenous sedative, Shirley came to pick me up from the hospital. It is less than two miles from our house - so very convenient.

I must say that the entire team in the endoscopy department were brilliant. Kind, competent and efficient - each performing his or her role in a proper, professional manner. I was in safe hands from start to finish. If I was rating the department on Trip Advisor, I would happily give them a glowing five star review. God bless the NHS!

Weekending

"The Visionary" (1989)

at Mar-a-Lago

Where is the 47th President of the USA this weekend? Do you really need to ask? He's at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida of course. He flew down there from Washington DC aboard Air Force One - a Boeing 747 - on Friday afternoon and he will be flying back on Monday morning.

It is the same most weekends. And why does he do this? Well, it is mostly to rest and relax, play golf and meet up with his chums. Apparently, he has taken to hosting dinners at which guests pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of dining with him.

The cost of each flight alone is about $1 million but there are many other costs surrounding security. The bill for these weekends away falls on American taxpayers. No thought is ever given to the blatant waste of aviation fuel and the 47th president's personal carbon footprint.

One might have imagined that a president's "to do" list would be as long as your arm, requiring very long working weeks at the political grindstone - but not so with #47. Effectively, he only puts in half a working week though I imagine that he still takes classified documents to his private mansion, scanning them briefly as he sits on what Americans sometimes call "the john".

As the Mar-a-Lago weekends are now part of an habitual presidential pattern, many of #47's fans now know when and where to wait for his motorcade - ready to wave and cheer.

One of them is a 31 year old landscaper and food delivery worker originally from Indiana. He is called Bradley Collier. After a recent presidential motorcade passed by he said, “Today was special.” This time, the limo seemed to roll slower and closer to the 'sidewalk', giving Collier a better glimpse of the president. “There’s nothing cooler than that,” he said, "other than Jesus Christ.”

Has there ever been a lazier president than the current incumbent? His time sheet speaks for itself and yet, as in the pitiful mind of Bradley Collier, #47 has in the eyes his doting support base taken on the character of a messianic figure who can do no wrong in spite of the evidence stacked against him.

By the way, the painting at the top in its ostentatious gilded frame is not some kind of jokey internet meme. It is genuine and hangs upon the barroom wall at Mar-a-Lago. In Trumpworld, truth is not only stranger than fiction but more horrific too.

Blanche

 "I don't want realism. I want magic!" - Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

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Blanche DuBois is one of the most significant female characters in modern drama and she is central to Tennessee Williams's 1947 play - "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Following a month long run at The Crucible Theatre here in Sheffield, the very last performance of Josh Seymour's version occurred this very evening with Joanna Vanderham playing Blanche. Shirley and I saw the show yesterday evening.

Blanche is a flawed character who finds it quite impossible to fit in. She is vulnerable and dreamy, partly aware of her weaknesses and partly in denial about them. It is almost as if she is not really of this earth but is perpetually seeking a higher plane of existence. She says, "I live in a world of fantasy, and it’s a much safer place to be" but she also recognises that she is a social being: "I need people to validate my existence."

Joanna Vanderham as Blanche

In The French Quarter of New Orleans, she come up against the aggressive obstinacy of her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. He is not prepared to pander to her whims and treats her like an unwelcome intruder, challenging her domestic habits and just about everything she says. His wife, Stella, begs him to be kinder to her sister but his cruel taunting persists. It is as if he can see right through her.

Oddly, in the Sheffield production, Stella Kowalski (née DuBois) was played by a black actress - Amara Okereke when she is meant to be Blanche's sister. I think that Tennessee Williams himself would have been surprised about this even though Amara Okereke was a very capable  performer.

The performance we witnessed definitely did justice to the text and to the spirit of the play and Joanna Vanderham certainly fitted the role of Blanche very well. However, I think that if I had been the director there would have been some subtle changes. 

Remembering that the setting is New Orleans in the summer, I would have had an electric  fan whirring silently and Blanche would have dabbed away perspiration with a handkerchief or cooled herself with a paper fan. That southern sultriness should contribute to the conditions in which the often  heated dialogue takes place. I would have also had a slightly older more battle-worn actor playing the part of Stanley Kowalski.

Imagery

 

Last weekend, Ian's girlfriend Sarah took a photograph of the three little cousins together. They were in our front room round the coffee table. From left to right there's Zachary, Margot and Phoebe. Sarah uploaded the image into an A.I. facility and requested a Japanese Anime version of it. This charming picture is what emerged a few seconds later.

There are one or two significant differences between the anime version and the original image. For example, the A.I. facility has turned Phoebe's cuddly sloth friend Monty into a rabbit and Margot is now looking at the camera when in the real picture she was looking down at the book on the table.

I have tried to use a similar A.I. facility. This slightly dated but happy photo of Shirley and the little ones...

became this monstrosity...

I can see me wasting away yet more hours on the computer playing around with this kind of online software. Who needs real life artists any more?

Nearby

Just four miles out of Sheffield, Hathersage is a substantial village set in the lovely shelter of The Hope Valley. St Michael's Church is located just outside the main village - a brisk walk away. Famously, the churchyard contains the grave of Robin Hood's loyal lieutenant - Little John whose cottage was close by. 

Above, I spotted that lone daffodil when I was perusing the graves in the churchyard extension. I guessed that I could achieve an eye-catching image with the church spire and an old yew tree as the scenic backdrop. Though I say it myself, I think it worked.

Below, you can see the same church snapped from Baulk Lane with some crows in flight. The house on the left is the old vicarage. It was here that the writer Charlotte Bronte stayed for three weeks in the summer of 1845. She was visiting her old friend Ellen Nussey whose brother Henry was the vicar of Hathersage for three years.  Charlotte and Ellen got to explore some of the nearby countryside together. It is pretty clear that those three weeks impacted upon the creation of "Jane Eyre" which was first published in October 1847.

Our spring weather has been quite perfect in recent days. On Tuesday, I decided to scratch an itch that had been in my mind for quite a while. When driving out of the city towards Fox House, I had frequently spotted a lone gatepost on the skyline and I wanted to get close to it.

Clint was duly parked by Blacka Moor Plantation and very soon I was vaulting clambering over a chained five bar gate into rough pastureland. Up the slope and I soon arrived at the finger of gritstone .

Out there, most of the drystone walls were tumbledown affairs. At the edge of one field, I spotted a large sarcen-like stone laid upon its side. It made me wonder if it had once been a standing stone, toppled by early farmers who sought to tame the wild landscape of Houndkirk Moor.

There are several significant ancient sites in the immediate area and just two hundred yards away, old maps suggest the presence of an ancient standing stone called "Fingerem Stone" but nobody knows anything about it. No sighting of it has ever been written down as far as I know. It's so tantalising.

Quiztime

 

The Quiztime theme on this occasion is the moon - as the image above suggests. As per usual, there are ten questions and the answers will be given in the "Comments" section.

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1) About how far is our moon from Earth?

(a) 238.5  miles (b) 2,385 miles (c) 23,850 miles (d) 238,850 miles

2) Who is this guy? 

Clue:- He was the Apollo 11 Command Module pilot who did not get to step foot on the moon on July 20th 1969.

3) What is the Swedish word for moon?

(a) månen (b) lunen (c) moon (d) stjärna

4) Which one of the these is NOT one of the "seas" of the moon?

(a) Sea of Fecundity  (b) Sea of Islands (c) Sea of  Dollars (d) Sea of Tranquility

5) What is the surname of Mary - creator of the award-winning Florida blog "Bless our Hearts"?

(a) Jupiter  (b) Moon (c) Magdalene  (d) Neptune

6) Around half the height of Mount Everest, what is the tallest mountain on the moon?

(a)  Mount Hegseth  (b) Rainbow Mountain  

(c) Mons Huygens  (d) Montagne Grande

7) One of the founding members of The Who, who is this crazy drummer? (He died in 1978 at the age of 32)

8) The moon has eight phases but which phase comes immediately before a full moon?

(a) waning gibbous (b) first quarter (c) waxing crescent (d) waxing gibbous

9) In total, how many American astronauts have walked on the moon?

(a) five (b) nine (c) twelve (d) twenty three

10) In which 1961 film did the song "Moon River" first feature?

(a) "West Side Story" (b) "Breakfast at Tiffany's"  

(c)  "The Young Savages" (d) "The Guns of Navarone"

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That's it folks! How did you do?

"Flow"

At one thirty this afternoon, I set off walking to the city centre. It is about two miles from our house. I opted to walk purely for the exercise. Along Psalter Lane, down Cemetery Road then under the inner circular road.

My destination was The Showroom Cinema. The film I had in mind was "Flow" as recommended by John Gray over at "Going Gently". "Flow" won the Best Animated Film Feature award at this year's Oscars, becoming the very first Latvian film to win any kind of oscar.

There are no human voices in "Flow". No words. But we do hear the wordless voices of the nameless central characters - a cat, a lemur, a secretarybird, a Labrador dog and a capybara.

They find themselves together in an old boat, sailing over a flood  which keeps rising - inundating most everything. There is incidental music which enhances the action and is never obtrusive. Later, the flood subsides and they are back on terra firma.

There is joy in "Flow" as well as terror. It was meticulously crafted. At times, the visuals are breathtaking but I noticed that the animals never seemed to get wet  even when they had been swimming in the flood. Was that a purposeful choice or a technical challenge too far for the animators?

"Flow" has a magical, very beautiful quality about it and it is easy to get lost in the artifice. Is it about anything? Does it have a purpose? Why was it made? I am not sure that I could answer any of these questions but what I can say is that it provides a unique cinematic experience. I guess that you just have to go with the flow of "Flow".

Portraiture

 

What a fine portrait of Donald J. Trump was created by  artist Sarah Boardman. It hangs in the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver. Through this well-executed portrait, Ms Boardman has disproved the old saying, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". 

Cunningly, the artist has taken years off the sitter who in real life appears much more haggard and confrontational. Any photographic close-ups of his facial complexion reveals a surface that is not unlike our moon but through Ms Boardman's brushwork, his skin appears as smooth as rendered fat.

...Oh drat!  While creating this blogpost, I have now discovered that President Trump has railed against Ms Boardman's painting. He doesn't like it, saying this: "Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before."

He has demanded the removal of his portrait. Oh what a shame for Sarah Boardman! Perhaps he will prefer my picture of him - made with some of our Phoebe's felt tips and crayons. Though I say it myself, I think it genuinely captures something of the true essence of the man...

Running

Ian on the way up - dispensing with his training top

Today was the day of The Sheffield Half Marathon. Plenty of roads in our sector of the city were closed off to enable some 8,000 runners to stride out safely into the nearby countryside before swinging back to the finishing line in the city centre..

I stood in the middle of Ecclesall Road and watched them coming up the hill. Great waves of competitors and  I was struck by the obvious realisation that each one of those runners was different from the next. Tall and short, fat and thin, male and female, black and white, young and old, dressed  in running gear or dressed like bananas. On and on they came, their feet thundering on the tarmac.

Amongst them was our forty year old son, Ian. He had travelled up to Sheffield for his mother's birthday and decided to squeeze in this half marathon as extra preparation for The London Marathon at the end of next month. He is not a competitive runner but his training has been building well and he finished in the middle of the field today.

Sheffield is Great Britain's hilliest city whereas the London marathon route is as flat as a pancake. Getting up to "The Norfolk Arms" pub at Ringinglow will have been demanding for all of today's runners but at least the descent would have been a comfort. What goes up must come down.

There's Ian on the way back down  waving at me.

I am very proud of our Ian's effort today but sorry that my photos of his participation were pretty poor. I just didn't see him coming. I am also pleased that I got to see 86 year old John Burkhill bringing up the rear -  pushing his pram up Ecclesall Road. He has raised well over £1,000,000 for Macmillan cancer nurses in the last fifteen years. What a legend!

Swarming

This blogpost is largely a memo to my future self about a significant health week in which issues  and question marks seemed to swarm around me like bees. 

Nine nights ago I fainted for the first time in my adult life. I am convinced that this was an adverse reaction to Larbex XL - an alpha blocker that  had just been added to my cocktail of anti-hypertension pills. That same night something else occurred that had never happened before. I deposited bright red blood in the toilet bowl and this kept happening for the next twenty four hours. It was alarming.

On Friday the 14th, I had a doctor's appointment which resulted in me having bloods taken on Monday morning. I should have left three stool samples but constipation had set in over the weekend. I was finally able to supply those samples on Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday afternoon I visited The Charles Clifford Dental Hospital for an operation - the surgical removal of a small granular cyst from the corner of my mouth. All went well but I need to go back for re-examination and the results of the biopsy.

On Wednesday, a receptionist at the local surgery phoned me about the bloods that I had provided on Monday. She said that something of concern had shown up and that I needed to have my bloods taken again on March 31st. There was some mention of diabetes but I didn't take it in. What was said seemed to be outside the sphere of an admin person.

On Friday morning, I had to attend the central clinic on Mulberry Street for pre-operative assessment as I have an operation coming up next month with the urology department at The Royal Hallamshire Hospital. This concerns a stricture in my urethra  - quite close to the point where it reaches the sphincter that leads into my bladder. The pre-op appointment lasted for ninety minutes.

On Friday afternoon, I went back to the doctor's surgery for another appointment - this time linked to the stool samples. I think the doctor I met is Egyptian though I had never seen him before. He seemed kind and competent. 

Of course the laboratory had found blood in my samples. Not surprising when these samples had been taken from my first stool after the night of the fainting. 

The doctor, who I think was called Dr Ahmed, said he accepted that Larbex XL almost certainly caused me to faint but the release of blood suggested that something else was amiss unconnected with the new drug. What a hell of a co-incidence that would be!

He asked if it would be okay to refer me for a colonoscopy which in layman's terms means a camera up my arse and in spite of myself,  I agreed to this.

So you may see what I mean about health matters swarming around me. I am sick of it. Once I was an urban superman with little need for medical professionals but now my frailities are coming home to roost. I can't even plan any holidays because of potential appointments around the corner. Maybe this is the beginning of the end.