Nose Job

Jus over a week ago I had four little patches of Actinic Keratosis burnt/frozen off my nose. I knew that I had a little patch of something on my nose for some years, but never got round to doing anything about it.  It took less than 5 minutes which included the writing of a prescription for a product to help with healing.

 I’m just waiting for the scabs to fall off and that should be the end of it. I will be using sun cream more regularly from now on.

(Taken a few days ago) 

Not very in focus I know, but you get the idea.

It comes in threes - or is it fours?

Yesterday morning I had to use my card to buy some stamps at the post office. I reversed my pin number. I was sure that I had the right number; three times. Now waiting for new number so that I can start using my card again…

When I was waiting to catch the bus to the clinic for my leg injections, a car drove past at great speed and soaked me as it went through a big puddle. The driver in the car behind looked as shocked as I felt.

At the clinic I was told that the government is making cuts again and so my injections are to be considered as aesthetic. I won’t be refunded at all for the sessions. Last year it was my glucosamine that was considered ‘comfort’ medicine. Let’s hope that the Minister of Health doesn’t ever suffer from arthritis or restless legs.

This morning, just when I thought it was safe, I opened the bathroom cupboard and a new bottle of nail varnish hit the floor and spattered everywhere. I managed to clean it up without too much trouble. The bathroom smells of acetone now, even after I removed all traces to the bin outside and cleaned the floor afterwards. I learnt today that spilled nail varnish dries a lot faster that nail varnish applied to your fingernails.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

The big six-oh

My birthday has come round again, but this time I’m going up into a different decade. I’ve had lots of presents and fuss from my family and enjoyed the Happy Birthdays from my Facebook friends . It has been a good day so far.

I’ve been thinking what to say about this decade; We had “Life begins at forty” and I said myself “But it really gets going at 50”. “Sweet 60s”?!

I can still play air guitar with the best. So here, live and all the way from the Red Square in Moscow is Sir Paul McCartney and friends just to wish me – and anyone else in Blogland who has one today;

Happy Birthday!

Time passes so quickly when...

It’s just over a week since we got home from a visit to the UK. We had a great time, but it was very tiring as we now have Dom and J-M to visit too. They only live around an hour from Stansted but we took about three hours to get to their house. It was a very rainy night and the vital road to take us into Colchester was closed that very evening. Anyway we finally arrived and refreshed and were shown around their new home and it was time for bed. Dom was supposed to be working, but she had a heavy cold and spent the morning in bed so J-M showed us around their new home town; it’s a really lovely place.

Then we popped to see Christian and J. Unfortunately it was my turn to be ill. Stomach upset, but no pain. I spent half a day in bed. Fortunately It was a day when no great travels were scheduled.

Then we were off to visit our mothers. We had a lovely afternoon with Rob’s mother and took her out in the wheelchair and sat in the beautiful grounds of the care home; Christian came too, so she was especially pleased. My mum is fine though we didn't have much time to see her..

Very soon it was time to go back to Dom and J-M for the final evening. Why do holidays always go so quickly?

September

Well, what have I been up to.? Both Olivier and then Dom and J-M came to visit. Dom and J-M are now living in the UK and Dom has started work. She also went off to a conference in Malta at the beginning of the month. She said that the weather was very hot over there.

Olivier popped home for a weekend as there is a holiday mid-August. He seems to be happy and this year his sessions at university will be 4 weeks long alternated with work for 4 weeks.

Christian, who I’m unsuccessfully trying to call Chris, helped me to install Windows 10. He used team viewer to take over my computer. I’m used to Window’s 10 now – it’s not much different to Windows 7. Mahjong and Spider Solitaire aren’t there anymore. All my scores over the last 4 years have been lost. There is Spider Solitaire, but it’s not the same. I’ve managed to find the original Shanghai Dynasty Mahjong that I used to play. I need a bigger version nowadays so that I can see the pattern on the tiles.

All of a sudden the weather has turned Septemberish. We still have lovely sunny days, but with very cold mornings. The washing doesn’t dry in a couple of hours outside anymore.

 Some blue sky for you, taken in the last week of August. Even the leaves aren’t as green now…

Château on fire?

I thought that they were just marks on the postcard but it seems that something (smoke? ectoplasm?) is coming out of the window....

Catching up with the children

Olivier returned to his bank town just a week ago. He enjoyed two weeks holiday and the weather was good. We didn’t see too much of him as he was out with friends or in their swimming pools. What we did see was good, he’s got the first year of his Master’s degree under his belt and he enjoys where he’s working. He went to his first wedding this summer – yes, even his friends are starting to get married. He also showed me pictures of babies: two of his friends are now proud fathers.

 It doesn’t seem 5 minutes since I met up for an afternoon with two of my ex bank colleagues. We all had our first babies within a month of each other and managed to get together when they were around 6 months old. They were all 28 this year!

Dom and J-M are coming over to see us tomorrow. They will be moving to the UK in a week or so as Dom will be starting a post as lecturer at Essex University in September. They will be living near to Colchester and I’m really looking forward to exploring the banks of the River Colne, as I’ve already looked on Google Earth. We’ll be visiting them in September, as well as Christian & J.

An educational Friday this time

My appointment with the dermatologist was last Friday morning. I was having my many moles beauty spots checked but I was more nervous about finding the Doctor’s office at the clinic complex. It it opposite the vein Doctor that I see. I hadn’t noticed it before because the writing on the wall is so big, not easy to read close up.

 She checked me all over and all of my moles and beauty spots are fine. I had a mole removed from my back 25 years ago so she asked me questions about that when she saw the scar.

 She told me that I have some kind of infection of the hair follicles – which is why I lost my eyebrows several years ago. My hairline is slowly receding, so now I have a prescription for some gel to apply.

 When she asked me if I had any questions I asked her about a little piece of skin on my nose, which never seems to heal properly. It’s an Actinic Karatosis. I’ve wondered about it for several years. In October she will remove it using Cryotherapy. 

I was in the dermatologist’s surgery for less than 15 minutes, learnt a lot and was reassured about my beauty spots.

Another interesting Friday

One of Rob’s colleagues is married and his wife works at the Napoleon and African Museums on the Ile d’Aix. The Ile d’Aix is very small and no cars are allowed, especially in the summer months. The ferry ride is about 20 minutes from the mainland.

Last Friday saw us catching the ferry to pay a visit to our friends. They actually live in the south of Charente Maritime, but while she is working she lodges in a little house behind the African museum. The family passes their time between two homes. The Ile d’Aix is a wonderful island and their other home is in a small town where artists have taken over the old fishing huts and painted them bright colours. What amazing memories their 8 year old son will have when he grows up.

 The little house is situated in a large walled garden, well away from the public eye and I was fascinated to see this dovecote placed over a well in the grounds:

They had other visitors too and we all started off our visit with a walk around the island. It takes a couple of hours and the day was very, very hot. There’s plenty of shade and between the trees you can catch glimpses of little coves and azure blue sea. Out hostess is a good guide and she pointed out places of interest and told us about the island as we went round.

Lunch was eaten under the trees, which was lovely and delicious and I picked up some new cookery ideas.

After lunch we were taken around the Napoleon Museum. Napoleon slept in the house, which is now the museum, for one night on his way to exile. Unfortunately, I was suffering from too much sun so didn’t really appreciate the visit as much as I’d liked to. I had to go back to rest. Strange to say I visited the museum on a very hot day when I was expecting Christian nearly 30 years ago and was unwell. I’ll have to try to visit in winter!

 Rob and his colleague visited the African museum which was actually the one I wanted to visit as it contains the famous dodo that I got involved with on Wikipedia. The talk page has been cleared over the years but here’s the post I wrote on my postcard blog. I now know that the dodo is not a real stuffed dodo.


After a rest and a drink of water I was fine again. The ferry was pretty full on the way back to the mainland. It was a lovely day – but hot!

We survived!

Despite the hot weather and a very early start to the day.

Bordeaux was quite quiet and cool when we arrived at about 8.45 in the morning. It even rained a few drops when we stopped for a cup of coffee on the way to the auction house. We ate inside at lunch time as it was windy and that is always dangerous in the noonday sun.

The auction went really well and we managed to get some good postcards as well as keep cool. They handed out cups of water to everyone there. Some of the collectors are quite elderly and need reminding to drink.

I wasn’t looking forward to the wait at the station, but it went really well. This weekend is the start of two months holidays here, so I expected a lot more people to be around. It was a reasonable Friday evening there. We got a seat in the bar and looked at our postcards for an hour and then wondered around the station shops and listened to the piano being played. Rob bought me a handbag in the sales; it took me quite a while to choose one. He was patient – anything to kill time waiting for a train.

They were handing out free bottles of water at the station so we had one each which was good timing as our supply was running low. Our train set off ten minutes late which was fine as we expected the worse. Overhead electric cables were dangerously low because of the heat all over France. It wasn’t crowded either so we chose a good seat opposite each other to eat our picnic.

I slept so well on Friday night