Things going phut

Not just things, it seems, but me too.

It was to be hoped that while Bruce was here fixing up all sorts of things, including light globes, that the light would thenceforth continue to shine. Instead, instead of twinkle twinkle little light globe, they are turning themselves off, one after the other. Oh bother. The ceilings are too high for me to reach, and I have little nightmares about clambering up ladders, falling off and lying there undiscovered indefinitely.

There is a wall light I can almost reach, if I clamber up on top of a side table, but I cannot manage to get the globe in. It is too fiddly for me. And other lights are going out in a sympathy strike. My ladder is not high enough, I am scared of falling off, and it is all too depressing. And this parlous condition subtracts from the good things of life.

I have cancelled the Foxtel, on the basis that if I want to watch repeats of the few TV shows I like, it would be better to buy the DVDs. And not make Rupert any richer. Today was the day for it to be switched off. And it was indeed switched off. Rupert does not muck about. But I do not know how to disconnect all their cables, and at the same time to keep the internet connection.

However Telstra did ring me up to see how my internet connection was. When last they rang, I could not find the modem. I know. Hopeless! Pathetic. So in a fit of sympathy for idiotic, pathetic, and inept older females, they rang Foxtel, and a technician is to come out and sort it all out. Perhaps next Tuesday. Or Thursday. Or Friday.  Who knows? In the meantime I cannot watch free to air because the remote control does not have on it any way of identifying how to scan for channels. I think in a fit of blind optimism I discarded all the notes about how to do what.

This afternoon I went to the dentist, but she was worried about doing the work, which involves an extraction, in case the tiny dose of aspirin I am on makes me bleed to death. She will check with the doctor and let me know. All that fear of dentist for nothing! And all is yet to come.

At least I managed to change the bed linen and wash it and get it all dry. And to wash the pressure glove, which then took all day to dry.

It is quite a performance getting going in the morning. I have to do the lymphoedema massage first, then breathing and stretching exercises. Then I must apply moisturiser all over my body. Once the moisturiser has been absorbed, then I can put on the pressure sleeve and glove. Then I can get dressed.  And get on with the day.

However, the light still shines and I am getting through a few books, and am working my way through listening to CDs I have not played for several years. And I am becoming more familiar with Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet, which the choir is singing in a few weeks. It it quite difficult, in many parts, and is in French.

It was my turn this week to write the argomento for one of the Italian classes, and I chose the comic operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and managed to take the appropriate selection with me on the iPad, and play it for the class. Sung in English, as G&S does not translate readily into Italian. It all went quite well and I made relatively few mistakes.

Would it not be lovely to achieve perfection one of these days? I live in hope, but not in expectation.

But when you do encounter kind and considerate people, it is such a joy.

And this afternoon there was very good news from my daughter, that her partner has got a job. It is a lucky firm that has him working for them. He and their family truly deserve the good things of life, and some good fortune after months of having a hard time. So there is much gladness and relief, and I know my tiny troubles matter little in the full scheme of things.