Nothing much

This has not been a good week, and the miseries have swamped me. The loins need to be girded and the teeth gritted. The jaw must be clenched, the shoulder must be put to the wheel, and the best foot put forward. I must push bravely onwards. Just like Christian soldiers, marching off to war. Tra la.

Cliches work to a rather limited extent. This is a pity, as they are so plentiful. They spring so readily to mind. Talk is easy.

I have been waiting for a phone call and it has not happened, and I am trying not to be a pest. Although I can see quite clearly the advantages of being a pest.

The remote controls for the garage door arrived, but I cannot activate them.

This is because I cannot understand the instructions, reach the control box, or see how to open it. (Let alone know what to do next.) My ladder is not high enough. The result was to make me feel quite useless.

Being a total sook does nothing to solve the problem. I comfort myself by realising that if Dr P were still alive, he could not fix it either, and would resolve the matter by getting his tall grandson to do it, or by paying someone.

As the first is not an option, perforce I must pay someone to do it and this is to be done next Wednesday. Having organised this, I have cheered up slightly. I have resolved to watch carefully and learn how to do it myself, just in case. Being useless, or relatively so, is not a good condition to be in. It might be necessary to buy a longer ladder. It has occurred to me that while the man is here he can change the light globe for me.

This afternoon I had my flu injection. I am not sure why I do this, as I have only had influenza about once in my entire life, but it keeps bread in the mouths of the doctors. I discovered that I am at very low risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, and am generally in good health, albeit stressed. Perhaps I will meet my end by falling off a ladder, and slowly dying, because no one would know about the accident, and nor could they get inside this grim little fortress. However this sounds altogether too grisly and gruesome, so I will take care of myself.

Nor has it been a totally useless week in other respects. I finally decided it was time to activate my Apple One to One membership. I could not find the subscription, so called in to the Apple shop in the city, to see whether they could show me what it looked like, so that I could search the house yet again. Wonderful people, so patient and kind: they found my receipt, gave me a new card and activated it for me, and I am to have my first lesson next week. It is time to start learning again.

I am going to Canberra for the weekend, to immerse myself in family life. Children, grandchildren, friends, a soccer game, and some social activity.

On Sunday I took myself to a film of the Covent Garden production, by Jonathan Miller, of Così Fan Tutte.  For some reason, I was charged the price of a child's ticket - an arbitrary but kind decision, as obviously I do not at all resemble a child under 15 years of age. The film lasted four and a half hours, with an interval. It was wonderful. Normally I do not like operas being transposed into modern times, but this time it worked, because the opera does not depend on any historical setting, but rather on emotions and human nature. Instead of wearing lockets containing portraits of the lovers, they all used iPhones, and this was very funny. Fabulous singing and acting.

As I waited to exit from the car park, the driver of a parked car, naturally a 4 Wheel Drive, backed out of his space without looking, causing the car in front of me to reverse to avoid being hit, and that car then hit mine. Not my fault, not her fault. Fortunately, it was the veriest, teensiest scrape, and I won't bother doing anything about it. But that bastard SUV driver, who was totally to blame, just drove off into the looming dusk. How unfair is that!

It is a truism, but Life Is Like That! Worse luck.






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