Dreaded collar is off!

It's scrawny, the feathers are all a bit out of shape and I do look as if the moth have been at my neck but I am freeeee! Oh, hallelujah!

Off we trundled to East Sheen by tubular railway and number 33 bus. We arrived early and she let me out of the cage and I sat on her hand. A cage came in.. with a beautiful 4 year old African Grey in it.. sigh.. I used to look like that once upon a time. She had not a feather out of place or missing.. I felt a bit less than..

Nice Matthew called us in early, he weighed me, I have lost 20g in weight in the past 10 weeks, I'm now only 420g, "to be expected, has she been off her food" he asked. Mama explained that I was eating very little and had put it down to the collar, he thought she was right but asked her to weigh me each week and to try and to get me to eat 'tasty morsels', as he called them!

He is such a nice man but he was deemed to be even nicer when he produced a screwdriver and removed that dreaded plastic collar! Oh, I could scratch my scrawny neck! Oh.. such bliss.

She paid the bill and we trundled home all the way home by bus, me in my ferret cage in a big basket, her in the Roman shoes doing a fine imitation of peg-a-leg.

We ate a very late lunch at 3.45pm of pan fried liver with steamed vegetables and now we are going to take it quietly for the rest of the day, so I can scratch and preen and she can rest poor foot which has done a fair bit of walking and going up and down stairs.

And tonight, Dear Readers, Beaky will sleep between my shoulder blades..

GeeGee Parrot.
March 31st, 2016.

Pray for me Dear Readers.. pray the vet takes dreaded collar off.

Tomorrow it will be ten weeks to the day that Matthew put that dreaded collar onto me and she called the vet to ask if it could come off, we are going to East Sheen at 1.30pm for Matthew to look and make up his mind.

My tumtum, back and bum are feathered up, however, there are many feather missing from my legs for I am able to reach them even with this collar on but she cannot cuddle me with dreaded plastic thing around my neck and she is quite prepared to let me sleep in her bed at night for a week which would stop me 'doing' my legs when I am put to bed. She wraps me up in an old t.shirt just like she used to do with Darling Dagga.

Now how about this for the saddest thing ever? As you know she's lost all this weight and has been able to slip easily into the smallest jeans she owns, well, with no fast walking being walked, her metabolism has slowed right down.. grr.. she wore a softer pair of shoes today but made sure that another sole from an old pair of sailing shoes was put in as well.

It made a difference but Dear Readers, did or have you ever realised just how lumpy and bumpy the pavements are? And as for those evil little bumps which tell blind people that they are at a corner or street crossing.. oh, dearie me, they cause her poor foot to be so sore.

Anything uneven is agony.. she won't be gardening again for a while at this rate, the plots are very lumpy and bumpy.. even the track getting to the plots from the main road would be a nightmare as it is so chewed up.. the effect of not being able to walk as much as she is used to doing is that she's stopped losing weight and is bloating! Her jeans are a 'tiny' bit tight around her waist.. drat!

Ohh.. she's just had the most marvellous surprise! Her veryvery dearest most wonderful friend Lorraine has called. She's a truly remarkable woman with an amazing healing ability. They met when Hay darling was dying, this wonderful woman kept Hay completely free of pain for a year and a half, despite the fact that Hay was riddled with cancer of the bone and a secondary one as well.

They have no secrets these two and the call was hilarious and she too has exactly the same thing wrong with her foot, it is her left and caused in exactly the same way.. by wearing soft shoes that didn't have enough support.

Oh, how they laughed.. and we have been invited to stay! How about that,and we are off to Watchet, don't you think that's a funny name, in May for a few days. May looks like a busy month.. we're off to Wiltshire to aide and abet Michele having a birthday and then down to Somerset to catch up with all of Lorraines' news.. of which there was much more than could be talked about tonight!

But now it is terribly late.. to bed we must go.. pippip Dear Readers.. pippip.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 30th, 2016.

YESTERDAY.. WHERE'S YESTERDAY?

Uh.. where did Tuesday March 29th, 2016 go? One minute we were enjoying Easter Monday and the next minute, she received a call from someone saying it is Wednesday March 30th and your appointment is today. "NO.. it can't be, it's next month" she said.. only to told that no, actually, it is today @ 11.30am on March 30th.

Ugh.. Oh drat and double drat.. what a dudu thing to happen. She went and looked in her wallet and sure enough, she'd written 30.4 instead of 30.3.. oh, how stupid can you be.. veryvery is the answer.

And there was no chance she could even hurry-scurry out of the house to make the appointment today, it is the other side of London and takes, by bus and tube, a good hour to get there and that's without dodgy foot slowing her down.

Yes, that dodgy foot is extremely boring and taking a long time to heal after being bashed whilst wearing those thin soled 'driving' shoes.. they're very snappy and pretty but do her foot no favours, they are ok for wearing indoors but a disaster for walking on hard and uneven surfaces.. such as the great outside.

We have sunshine today, it is pretty to look at and she would have gone to the allotment but cannot, for foot will not take the uneven ground and she has to get the bruising down before she stuffs her feet into her work boots as it would be very stupid to bruise it again.

It'll calm down, as it did before but as with all things like this, they take time. However, it is indeed mighty boring to be so limited on how far AND how fast she can walk.. pottering along is not her normal speed, she is not a window gazer, she goes out to get somewhere or for fresh air and neither of these are done at slow speed.

Well, I know one thing she did yesterday, she must have visited the butcher as we're having calves liver for lunch with steamed carrots, kale and brocolli, slurp, she is taking her iron deficiency seriously and liver is a good source of it, plus of course, her magic tincture of stinging nettle. The carrots, broccoli and kale give lots of other important things.

I am being a silly girl about my food.. I didn't even nibble my soft boiled egg this morning, I had a morsel of raw liver, then flew out of YumYum HQ. I am not quite sure what I do want, she offers me pretty much everything but I am not really hungry.. yes, she sighs.

Oh.. goodness me.. she really has lost the plot! For she has just remembered that she collected a blood test form from the surgery yesterday and was due to go for a follow-up nil-by-mouth blood test first thing this morning.. oh dear. Ah well.. tomorrow is, thank goodness, a new day and it will be tomorrow.

But she's now checking her diary just to make sure she hasn't got anything else on that she's forgotten about.. and sure enough.. April 5th.. next Tuesday has popped up! An appointment at 1.30 which she'd completely forgotten about.. phew.

It's all too much.. I'm off to doze on pole by door.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 30th, 2016.

Easter Monday. it's a holiday so why wasn't she out there gardening?,

Have you seen the news about the 105 mph winds recorded at Heathrow Airport?

Well, the allotments are only about two miles away from there and they are in the midst of a great big open space, the wind comes in from the south-west and there is zero protection from it. That's why there is no gardening being done today!

Pete and Michele came early and took away two enormous bags of linens, adult and children' clothes.

It is a year almost to the day when I first met them and at first, when I saw him today, I didn't believe it was true.. there was my 'friend', the only man, apart from my two nice vets, who is not intimidated by Beaky and who kisses, yes, kisses me on Beaky and allows me to sit on his head and gets a slightly soppy look on his face whilst I'm up there 'cos I'm his Kasuko friend.. Swahili for parrot.

Then she 'got on her bike' and pottered off down to weigh-in.. huh.. to be told that she maintained her weight at 10 stone 1lb. That didn't please very much at all, for she hasn't eaten.. oh yes, she did!

She had that amazingly scrumptious huge supper with Ann and Roy on Easter Friday when she ate everything, then those two half slices of cake yeaterday.. in which case, it was a miracle she hadn't gained anything.

I write pottered because there is no fast walking been done yet, her poor sore foot is still extremely sore, drat, she forgot to put the naughty shoes in with the childrens' clothes. The only shoes that are comfortable are her Roman shoes, they protect and support the damaged edge of her right foot where she has an arthritic spur.

Anything else allows her foot to much freedom.. beware of wearing trainers and rubber soled boots all the time folks, your feet won't thank you for it, it maybe be comfy now but your feet will spread and widen and your arches will flatten.

Oh dear, what a violent time it is in the world at the moment.. the deaths of those seventy five people, mostly children and women, of all different religions in Lahore was dreadful, as was the crucifixion of the Indian Catholic priest in the Yemen together with the shooting of the four nuns and some of the residents of the nursing home.

We pray for those who live in the midst of terror and conflict. We live our life here and we are so grateful, for our food, clean water, electricity / heating, medical services, religious freedom and friends. We hope that you too are aware of what you have and appreciate it.

And I am going away.. not until May but we've been invited to go to stay in Pewsey for Michele's birthday.. how nice is that? Well, we call it veryvery nice indeed.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 28th, 2016.
PostScript: Easter Monday.

As loose as a Goose..

Ahhh.. Malaysian Dumplings with chilli and soya sauce. Now, can anyone tells us a better reason to sit with a friend on a chiller box in the open on a wet Sunday afternoon? No, I didn't think you could. Especially not if they're 'chased' by slices of excellent carrot and lemon cakes.

And in the meanwhile.. the English weather did its' worst.. hail, yes, large hail stones bounced off the tarmac and driving rain fell by the bucketful.. ah yes, it's Easter in England.. and three minutes later, the sun came out from behind a large black cloud and cheered us all up!

She parted with two pots of IshPol, Debbie had looked distinctly under-priviledged at Parson's Green last Sunday, we know how to fix that.. oh yes.. a couple of pots of IshPol and a bottle of something red and smelling sweetly of cherries is guaranteed to fix most ills.

Then she produced a box.. a box of Babka. This, to those if you who don't have Polish friends or relatives, is a tradional Polish Easter cake and they are delicious. She bought two from Bartek on Friday, one she gave to Ann and Roy and the other was the one she gave to Debbie today for her and all the others who are working with her, like ALL farmers with animals, very hard at the moment.

Why especially hard at the moment, well, it's calving / kidding and lambing time, that's why and animals don't usually have their babies between 9 to 5!

She is itch free! Oh, thank you Vitamin E..

Now, do you remember me telling you that she was deemed to be very low in iron in her last blood test? Well, she is now imbibing Tincture of Stinging Nettle. Nettles are strange things, in the early Springtime they are at their 'friendliest', for you can pick them, albeit carefully, with bare hands and you cook them like spinach and they are very nutricious and tasty.. the same cannot be said later in in the year! Also the land where they grow is extremely fertile, they're fussy folk nettles!

They're an excellent and high source of Iron and much safer and better for you than the dreaded Ferrous Sulphate which can cause all sorts of troubles.

And one way that you can tell if you or a child are deficient in iron is simple and involves nothing more than eating a raw beetroot. If the urine shows up to be beet coloured the next day, then you / the child is deficient in iron. If, however, the urine is, as it should be clear with no colour, then the iron level is ok.

Strange huh?

But the other marvellous thing that beets do, is to literally act as a broom to the digestive system, whoosh, they 'brush' everything out and now you understand the curious title of this post, for have you ever seen a constipated goose?

And on that note.. ByeBye.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 27th, 2016.

DID PRINCE WILLIAM SEE THE EASTER FORECAST & YOU'VE GOT TO BE QUICK!

Because it's going to be 'grotty' later on! Grotty? What's going to be grotty? The weather.. oh, it is too sneaky by half, we woke up to brilliant sunlight but, apparently, it's going to be doomy and gloomy within a couple of hours.. sigh.. just like yesterday whose weather went down hill very fast ending up bitterly cold with torrential rain.

So get your skates on and get out and about before that nasty old South-Westerly wind comes to town bringing nasty wet and windy weather again but all is not lost, for hey-oop folks, it's the 4th Sunday in the month and that means.. Dumplings @ Marylebone!

She cut a juicy round yellow melon in half and we've had boiled eggs and that, now I'm up on the bedroom pole, she's tapping iPad and then she's off.

Things to do and places to go.. Easter Service at our local church.. we'll be back later.. I wonder what the weather was like in Kenya for the Easter holidays?

GeeGee Parrot.
March 27th, 2016.

VITAMIN E SAVES THE DAY.. AND HER SANITY.

Frosty Tiger morning out there, the sky over deepest Knightsbridge looks like dirty washing up water,  which is not very appealing, isn't it good thing that chores have to be done indoors. She's tapping iPad, I am perambulating about on the bed, there's a saucer of an assortment of things for me to eat.. hummus, sunflower kernels, omelette of curd & spinach and two (measly) pieces of walnut. So all is well.. but we have incredibly exciting news to give you.

You all know she'd rather eat proper food or take a mineral or a vitamin supplement rather than a drug and she is using Vitamin E to get rid of the Sun Spots on the backs of her hands and arms and her face. And having started with her left hand, which was badly marked with big brown spots, we are delighted to report that her left hand is now left with only a few tiny freckles.

So there she was, a'sitting on the bus going to Hackney Central on Thursday, the entire Piccadilly Line was suspended due to strike (......), the traffic was backed up in both directions, buses were stopping but she had a book to read, and was controlling her frustration 'reasonably'. She had sent beloved Margaret, her optician, a text message saying she was going to be late.

And there.. in the book she read, which she already knew but it struck her out of the blue.. Vitamin E heals scars. 'Hummmm', she thought ' what would it do to hives? I've got a fresh bottle of this at home (Baldwins the Herbalists stock this and it doesn't cost two arms and a leg), I can but try'.

It was an extraordinary journey.. she's very private about her emotions (far too private for her own good, it goes back to being bullied as a small child.. oi vey.. so very few people know what's going on in that head of her.. but her lovely GP, Dr. Katherine, has managed to unlock her.

And guess who called her whilst the bus was stuck at Islington Green? Yes, Doctor Katherine, 'cos her lovely eye doctor had just spoken with her about my mamas' eyes. "Oh ....., I have just been talking with your consultant at Moorfields, I am so sorry to hear the latest news, how are you, please will you come and see me on Tuesday, what is happening with the new drug .... and more".

And with this display of kindness, she lost the plot and started to cry as she told Doctor Katherine about the hives, the scarring, the sleepness nights, the pain in her eyes. Suddenly she was aware that her left arm was being given a squeeze and that a small packet of tissues had been put into her hand and turning her head she saw sitting beside her a young woman in her early twenties.

So sweet.. you can't whisper into a mobile, especially not if you're on a packed bus and she couldn't not talk to her GP, plus, she was past caring who heard what, she has had a gruesome four weeks with these wretched hives.. so the youngster had obviously heard everything.

More tears were shed at the opticians as Margaret now knew the full extent of the eye damage from the change in her glasses prescription and was very sweet and comforting to her.. at least she had the sense not to buy any bread.. and she caught the 38 bus back to Green Park and then a 19 bus to come home.

The journey, I might add, had been made much worse by it being freezing cold with driving rain, ugh.

She came in, made tea and immediately went looking for the bottle of Vitamin E. You can imagine how hives love being itched by underclothes and trousers etc, so she was ready to scratch herself raw.. talk about being disciplined as not one finger had scratched a hive all day.

The precious bottle was found, the thick oily liquid poured onto fingers and gently rubbed over her hives. Each took probably about a minute.. then suddenly.. the pain went, the itching stopped and for the third time in one day, she cried.. in relief.

For Vitamin E had saved the day..

It is now Saturday and with the exception of one gigantic enormous hive on the lower part of her stomach, which is taking a lot longer to heal, they are manageable, they're shrinking, she puts the oil on three times a day, yes, it is 'slightly' inconvenient to have to do this but it is working and the marks are disappearing fast.

For yesterday, she was able to get dressed in 'proper' clothes, to go and plunder Bartek in Streatham and then go on out to supper with Ann and Roy, to sit comfortably and gossip, to sit at a proper table and eat a delicious Easter Friday fish supper and to come home late (11.30!!) all without a scratch.

And do you remember her fixation for those easy-peelers aka all things orange, round and citrusy? Well, they may be innocent of the charges put against them, she's waiting for another month to make sure that her hives have gone before she tries another.. BUT all that Vitamin C she consumed for those weeks HAS had an extraordinary effect..

You remember those arthritic swollen finger joints on her right hand, that were so swollen that rings were either not able to be worn or only able to be worn on her little finger. What swollen finger joints? Only her first finger is slightly misshapen, the rest? Her rings slide on and off as if nothing had ever been wrong.. her swollen joints have all shrunk to their normal size and they bend!

Vitamin C isn't just good against scurvy.. it is a magic bullet against arthritis as well, research and read up on the attributes of mega-doses of Vitamins.

Reasons to be Chirpful.. a few.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 26th, 2016.

A Banana, Chocolate & Mint Icecream.... Oh slurp!

Don't worry folks, I am posting this with plenty of time for you to make it for your Easter lunch, why, you might already have these ingredients at home!

This is what you need to make this exceptionally good dessert..

4 Medium sized RIPE but not too ripe bananas.
3 x 175g pots of MullerLight Toffee Yoghurt (we love this stuff).
4 tbsp of sweetner.
2 drops of Peppermint extract.
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint leaves.
2 drops of green food colouring.
2 level tbsp of dark chocolate chips (of course you've got these, you just need to find them)

How to make it..

Peel and slice the bananas into 2cm thick pieces.
Put them into a freezer proof box with the lid on.
Freeze for 3-4 hours.

Once frozen, put the bananas into a food processor with:
The yoghurt, sweetener, peppermint extract, mint leaves & food colouring.
Whizz for 2-3 minutes till smooth.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Return to the freezer box, put on the lid.
Put into the freezer until ready to serve.

Oh, it is the prettiest of ice creams and WHO doesn't like mint or chocolate and together, they're a marriage made in culinary heaven!

Well, today is reasonably bright but not very warm. I suppose you could call it an 'English Spring' day, on days like this, especially at Easter time, she tries not to think of her garden in Spain in the 70's.. the light and the warmth. She thinks it is the light she misses the most. She would have been gardening every day and lovely things would have been growing and being eaten.. oi vey.

She hasn't been back since she sold the house in 1978, the man who bought it sold off the land, keeping only a metre or two beyond the swimming pool and according to an old friend who visits her friends in the next door village, there are now four houses on the ground where she grew the fruit and vegetables which fed her family and two others.

It is a good thing that Juan Antonio is not alive to see this. The very dearest of dear men, they 'broke' their backs together making the terraces and raised beds on the sloping part of the land. He pruned the citrus trees, took care of the olives and kept an eye on Hugo (her father had had a stroke in 1972 which paralysed his right side. Between James, an ex-army nurse and JA, he regained the use of his leg and his hand).

Ah well.. everything has changed in many of the places that she knew and loved. The people who've just sold Bishopsdale (where she lived as a young teenager) put a conservatory onto the side of the house, which is Tudor, very early Tudor.. words failed her when she was told that.. and they dug up the camomile lawn and made a gravel drive..

She has to do stuff.. I think it's called tiding up.. aka house work. So I am off out of reach of that duster and going onto pole for a doze.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 25th, 2016.

A CHEESECAKE OR PANNA COTTA? Now, there's a question for you!

Eenie meanie minie mo.. which one will she give you today, for blogs can't just talk about scary books, can they?

Well, seeing as how it is the Easter week end and chocolate should be eaten, we're going to give you the recipe for a panna cotta.

Get a pad and a pen 'cos here's the list of ingredients..

Leaf gelatine.. you'll need 8 sheets.
200ml of skimmed milk.
20g of white chocolate broken into pieces.
8 tsp of sweetener.
1 vanilla pod, half it lengthways, scoop out the seeds.
Wrap and put the pod in the fridge, you won't be using it.
175g pot of vanilla yoghurt, we use MullerLight.
175g pot of toffee yoghurt, we use MullerLight.
2 level tbsp of cocoa powder.
2 level tsp of very finely chopped nuts & white chocolate to grate.

How to do it..
Divide the gelatine between 2 bowls.
Cover with cold water and leave for 20 minutes to soften.
Pour 100ml milk into a small saucepan.
Add the broken up white chocolate.
4 tsp of the sweetener and the vanilla seeds.
Bring slowly & gently to the boil.
Stir until the chocolate has melted, remove from heat.
Remove gelatine from one bowl.
Squeeze out excess water.
Add gelatine to the chocolate mixture, stir intil dissolved.
Allow to cool.
Stir in vanilla yoghurt.
Divide between 4 x 175 moulds or ramekins.
Freeze for 30 minutes.

Pour the remaining 100ml of milk into another small pan.
Add the remaining 4 tsp of sweetener.
Bring gently to the boil.
Whisk in the cocoa powder and remove from heat.
Squeeze the water out of the remaining 4 gelatine sheets.
Add to the pan,stir until dissolved.
Allow to cool.
Stir in the toffee yoghurt.

Remove the ramekins / moulds from the freezer.
Divide the toffee mix between the 4 ramekins / moulds.
Place back in the freezer for a further 4 - 6 hours.

When ready to serve, dip the ramekins / moulds in hot water for a few seconds.
Turn out onto small plates.
Decorate with the chopped nuts and grated white chocolate.

Ohh.. she's hoping that Ann will make panna cotta for their pudding tomorrow night, she makes it so beautifully.

Now she's got some stuff to do, so we're off, we're having diced pork and steamed vegetables in pork stock with rice noodles for supper tonight, it is a new recipe that she's dreamt up and it smells divine.. very slurpy indeed.

Tomorrow, we'll tell you about todays' mammoth trip to Hackney.. with NO Piccadilly Line working.. to collect her new glasses. Oh brother, she wasn't a happy bunny when she came back in from that trip, cold, hungry and wet.. it was a good thing there was no bread in the house! She was in the frame of mind to have 'wolfed' a slice or two and we can't have that, can we?

GeeGee Parrot.
March 24th, 2016.

MURDER HOUSE by James Patterson & David Ellis.

Thrillers! Who doesn't enjoy a good thriller, when you don't know who the 'baddie' is right up until the last minute!

She's never read anything by either of these two authors before, but picked this book up in the library on Sunday as it was on the 'Recommended' table and took it with her to L'Oreal today and enjoyed it, she also enjoyed that lunch that she had made and taken.. cold salmon tail in fat free yoghurt with steamed carrots, brocolli and peas with chilli flakes. Scrummy!

It is easy to make yourself a little packed lunch like this and together with a couple of pieces of fruit and a bottle of water, it made a tasty repast which was much nicer than buying something with who or goodness knows in it!

The team at L'Oreal did her proud! She's a very dark blonde / mid brown with some darker and lighter lights woven through the top. Pretty.. she's very pleased with it and so were the team.

Tomorrow she's off down to Hackney Central, her sweet optician put a 'rush' on her glasses and she's picking them up tomorrow at lunch time.. she will not be buying two loaves of bread.. or even one! The ramifications are still rumbling through her system, it truly isn't good for her.. just have to repeat after herself "I must not buy OR eat bread.."

Yum! Supper on Easter Friday with Anne and Roy! That'll be tasty, Ann is, as you all know, a great cook! So when she comes back from getting her glasses, she'll be making chocolate salami, in fact, several salami. She had thought of making a chocolate ring.. but where are the rings? Most curious, for she cannot find any of her baking tins! She's hidden them somewhere but where? Who knows..

That's your lot.. go and look for James Patterson at your library, he's written several books it appears. We wish Daniel Silva would hurry up and write another book, we like his style of writing but have now read all of his books. They don't write fast enough these guys..

Bed time for us dollies.. Maundy Thursday tomorrow.. Lent is finishing.. Easter is this week end but no lie-in as the clocks ARE going Springing forwards on Easter Day!

GeeGee Parrot.
March 23rd, 2016.

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE by Paula Daly. Published by Bantam in 2014.

Wow! A cracker of a page turner! The lady sure can write.. this is the second book by this author she has read and it has a great twisty tale, we guarantee that!

But what is she doing indoors on a sunny day, you might well ask that question Dear Readers.. she's not only been indoors today but she's also spent most of it in or on her bed! Lazy wench, I know that's what you're thinking, she should be out there a'weeding that poor old asparagus bed.

Well, it all started yesterday.. it was a bright sunny day so she dressed accordingly and said "oh, how blissful GeeGee I don't have to wear winter boots, I can wear slip-on shoes with no socks" and with those on her feet, off she raced to weigh-in, to pick up her prescriptions and to hunt for a Fair Isle pattern to give to Pat.

It was when she was trotting fast down the North End Road that she felt her right foot go.. again. The pain shot through the outer edge of her sole and brought her to a standstill! Drat.. and then she figured it out.

She's lost a lot of fat and water off her feet, all her shoes and boots are much looser and the 'Driving' shoes which she was wearing have a very soft rubber sole and were giving no protection to her feet. The little spur that had shown up in that xray had been bashed and was giving her gyp.. big gyp.

She dot-and-carried-one up the street, did the weigh-in, about which we won't speak, then limped off back to the bus stop.. wretched shoes, they're pretty but not good for her feet. She came home, put socks on and eased her foot into her Roman loafer, which are proper shoes with good support and a leather sole.

This enabled her to at least walk to the surgery, collect her prescription, take it down to her chemist in Sloane Street and to finish her chores but when she got home and took off her sock.. oi vey.. her foot was swollen and sore.

As she has plans for the Easter week end, it seemed sensible to stay off that poor sore foot today and put ice on it.. which is how she managed to read 'KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE' by Paula Daly. No, of course we are not going to tell you the story but it is a cracking tale and you'll never see the ending coming, we recommend you go and get it from your library immediately, if not sooner, to read over the Easter holiday.

It's a scary book! But 'good' scary! Off you go and don't be too late to bed..

GeeGee Parrot.
March 22nd, 2016.

Guess.. gone on, have a guess as to what those scales showed!

She's fast approaching the dizzy age of sixty six, yes folks.. sixty six. Not eighteen and doesn't know bettter, in fact, when she WAS eighteen, she never did this.. because she was as slim as a reed and had a waist of nineteen inches and retained that waist measurement for a very long time.

What am I wittering on about? Bread, that's what I am talking about. Her and Bread. Good bread to her is like Catnip to a cat. It is something to which that she has become, literally, addicted to and has to learn to stay away from.

For besides putting on weight, it has an unpleasant side effect in which it slows down her digestive system.. if you get my drift.. and whoops.. she gets 'problems' again. She uses a lovely chemists in Sloane Street, has done so for years and yesterday she went in with her prescriptions to pick up the next months supply of eye drops.

The lovely woman who works there was looking wonderful! She had just returned from holidaying in Jamaica and had had a glorious time. They chatted and mama said something about slimming and how bread was so evil for her. "Me too, I am on the same routine, I've lost over three stone but have walked away from bread entirely, it causes me all manner of 'problems' like you" said the lovely woman.

They chatted about the system which allows you to eat everything.. in moderation! So today, she's going to cut up the remains of those glorious loaves and feed it to the birds in the park. For the scales showed a gain of 3.5lbs yesterday.. yes, 3.5lbs.. gulp!

She's back over ten stone again.. to 10.1lbs.. and has no one but herself to blame.. oh dear, no more toasty crunchy crusts for me. ByeBye Bread.. ByeBye.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 22nd, 2016.

'THE MISTAKE I MADE' by Paula Daly. Published by Bantam Press, this book was in her bag of swag.

This book, Dear Readers, was in her bag of swag dutifully trundled home by WW yesterday. Along with a large, very motley collection of other types of books. A couple on knitting as Dearest Pat, the maker of exquisite Beanies, has offered to knit her a couple of sweaters and she is looking for a pattern.

The others consisted of a gardening one, a book on Sister Parish, the American decorator who had been a dear friend of Miss Betty and for whom she made lampshades and several novels. She had sat beside someone on the tube reading this latest one by Paula Daly and the guy said "brilliant" as he turned the last page.

She asked him for the title but he sweetly said "here, take a photo of the cover, that way you'll be able to find it at your library". Another sensible person who reads library books! Sure enough, the novel was excellent.. the ending unexpected.. she hopes that the other book by the same author is as good.

But that wasn't all that was in her bag of swag.. oh no! For she had chewed fat with Debbie at the Parson's Green Farmer's Market, they ate small chocolate salami. It is kidding time back home on the farm and they've had 99 kiddley-diddlies so far and many sleepless nights.

Debbie gave her a half shoulder of kid, serious YumYum folks, and a pot of curd for me. Now there's a thought.. there wasn't any on my saucer this morning.. humm.. I wonder how I can get that chilly white larder door open?

"Slurp" said mama.. "kid and jerk seasoning". Do you know this Jamaican seasoning folks? You only need a little to rub over a joint of lamb or kid, the real stuff is mighty potent, to say the least! And she knew exactly where a bottle was, as she had bought a new one only last week!

Weigh-in day today, she's pretty sure, after scoffing these two wonderful breads, that she may have gained weight, she's has this 'blind' spot about really good bread as I have told you before, she gets to a certain point with her stress level and wallop, she'll buy bread. She knew Margaret at EYE opticians was going to find her sight significantly changed and had 'reached' for the bread.

At least she only goes for the good stuff, you won't find her eating sliced Mighty White which you know has to have goodness knows how many chemicals in it but it doesn't help with her weight loss especially as her level if exercise is low.. but today for a change is actually a sunny day.

It has, correction, it IS being a cold, dull, windy Spring but here's something thing to cheer you and her up. The dark red plum tree in Walton Street has just blossomed, the sight is enough to make anyone smile, the tree is very sheltered so we don't expect our plun trees to be in blossom yet but maybe IF it is a decent day, tomorrow, she'll go to do work out at the allotments and find some narcissi to pick.

Wednesday is L'Oreal day for her colour.. starting at 1.30pm, that takes up most of the afternoon. She'll take a book and just sit whilst they work their magic. That makes for a quiet day for me.. there'll be a lot of dozing on pole above the front door.

Now she's got to wash and dress, I've had an early 'elevenses' of several walnut halves and she's made a note to buy more apples and pears on her way to weigh-in at 1.00pm.

Toodle-pip folks.. pippip.. oh yes, it's very sunny outside.. that's a very chirpful sight indeed.

GeeGeeParrot.
March 21st, 2016.

Sorry folks.. It is NEXT Sunday that clocks spring forward.. my mistake!

The clocks go forward next Sunday.. we have been pottering around here wondering why it's so quiet! How silly are we, fancy losing an hours sleep time in our burrow! Ah well.. we'll make up for it sometime, I'm sure!

GeeGee Parrot.
March 20th, 2016.

I NEARLY FELL OFF MY PERCH I LAUGHED SO MUCH!

Yes, Dear Readers, I am home.. free as de bird, out of jail! And at this precise moment I am gobbling walnuts and pieces of pear.. my latest passion! Who knew those hard green things could be so tasty and full of juice? Not me, for I've never been offered one before.

She managed to get everything done in double quick time yesterday, it transpired that it was the junction box on the tv aerial flex and the cable to her connection that was damaged that was the problem, so Jorge, the efficient cable man, stripped out her old cable, fitted a new connection box, came and checked the reception on her tv and was gone by 10.45am.

She was already to leave, so she blew me a kiss and was gone out of the house and down into the underground before 11.00am. First to Moorfrields Eye Hospital to drop something off for her Eye Consultant, then onto the Northern Line to Angel station.

Off at Angel and onto a 38 bus to Hackney Central where her marvellous optician is. She was early, so went into a wonderful shop, called I think Fresh Foods. Oh dear.. they sell the best Sourdough bread in London, we kid you not.. so she bought one of those and another Sourdough which has inside and is rolled in multi seeds.. heaven in a loaf!

Huh.. she has this 'thing' about reallyreally great bread, neither of these loaves is going to be alive for very long, it is a very good thing they are the other side of London, that's for sure.

Back to EYE Opticians (in Mare Street, Hackney) for her appointment at 12.40. A full examination of both eyes, oh dear, there is a very significant change for the worst in both eyes, she needs new prescriptions for both close and distance wear.

Tra-la-la.. che sera sera!

Lovely Margaret, her optician, said they'll be ready to be collected by the Wednesday after Easter, yes folks, it starts this coming week with Easter Friday which is a Bank Holiday here in the UK as is the following Monday.

To save massive amounts of money she is having the new lenses put into her old frames, this is how Margaret is so sweet to her old customers, she never makes you feel you have to buy new frames and has even taken an old pair of Constance's dark glasses that fit mama perfectly and is going to make them into prescription long distance dark glasses for her.

Then back onto a 38 bus to Green Park, then onto a number 9 bus and off in Kensington High Street to come and collect me from prison.. aka the aviary.. aka jail. You'll be pleased to hear I hadn't bitten anyone and had behaved myself but not eaten very much.

So home we came and were inside and 'gasping' for LapySang at 16.05. Actually, she was gasping for tea AND toast! What's that smell, I thought and was offered a piece of crust with seeds, oh, I do see why she's adicted to this particular bakery, their bread is simply divine! Talk about crunchy! Slurp.

And today? Oooh, yum, an omelette was made with cheese.. very tasty and very acceptable. I don't know why but a soft boiled egg no longer ticks my box as being what I want to break the dreaded nights' fast with.

She went to the market, to buy a couple of things and came home via a spice merchant, for she needed cinnamon, ginger and turmeric, and the butcher where she bought two duck breasts and a neck of lamb cut into chops. Lots of carrots came too and a book of second class stamps for her Easter cards. They were written last night, so plop, they were stamped and put into a Post Box.

Home again.. lunch.. at a reasonable hour! Yum.. grilled lamb chops with carrot and sweet potato. Followed by a pear and a sliver or two of hard cheese with a slice of sourdough toast.. You see now why I am not hedging any bets on a weight loss this coming Monday.

Ah well, she hasn't gobbled tons of chocolate or any other sweet things for goodness knows how long, so if she has gained an ounce or two.. it's Easter next week end after all.

Tomorrow, she'll be meeting young Deborah at Parson's Green Farmer's Market for a chat, it is too windy and cold to work at the allotment, we forget it is still March, there's no warmth in the sunshine unless there is no wind but there's plenty of that!

Yes, she knows she should be weeding of that poor asparagus bed but it ain't going to happen yet. This, Dear Readers, is what being deficient in iron, vit d and low on thyroid (all of which she is) does to you.. it makes you lazy.. JOKE!

But as to the title of this post.. it came about because I heard her muttering to herself saying "I must go to the library, I've finished my books and have got nothing to read".. NOTHING to read? This flat is bursting at the seams with books she could read and dvds that she could watch!

Nothing to read, don't you just love it! I laughed so much, "nothing to read", it sounded so pathetic. Poor old bat, never mind, she'll go to the library on her way home from seeing Debbie at the market.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 19th, 2016.

I'M IN PRISON..

Because this tv aerial engineer is going to be in and out of the flat, and this means in and out of our bedroom, for two hours tomorrow, I have been taken to jail. Worry not, Dear Readers, I'll be quite happy here for this short stay.

But I may have to stay there until Saturday morning as she has to run to Hackney after the aerial man leaves, she has an appointment to have her glasses checked and she then has to take something into Moorfields, so I doubt that she'll be back in time to collect me before jail closes at 6.00pm.

But this morning, she was thrilled to find just what she wanted, they're now in the post and should arrive with the recipients on Saturday morning as she paid for the box to go with First Class postage!

But that's all from me for tonight folks.. I'll be back here on Saturrday evening.

Don't forget that the clocks 'Spring' forward an hour in the UK this Sunday.. Goodie sunlight.. A real reason to be Chirpful..

GeeGee Parrot.
March 17th, 2016.
PostScript. St.Patrick's Day.

What a difference a day makes.. tonight it's 2 degrees and will be 3 degrees tomorrow.. chillybilly folks.. chillybilly.

Hallelujah.. we think the Itches are going.. we ain't holding our breath 'cos she now got.. no, that's getting too far ahead of myself, I better start at the beginning of the day. Let's go back several hours..

For some rather silly reason, I no longer think soft boiled egg, homemade hummus and a mixed variety of seeds a tasty way to start my day. So having turned Beaky up at that, I hoisted my fat little body up onto the basket and stood there, looking pathetic.

She's too wise.. she said "you will regret that, you silly bird, as I am going out and won't be back until much later, so you'll have to make do with dried bird food" and with that, she took us both out of YumYum HQ.

And off she went to the Audio dept at Charing Cross. One of the little earpieces refused to go back onto its' wire and only a technician would be able to sort it out for her, that duly done, they gave her new batteries and off she went to Fulham Broadway.

Where, in the bottom of the old St. John's Church, there is a dance school / studios. They teach every kind of dance and there is a tiny shop inside which stocks all manner of clothing and shoes. She was after a pair of black leather soft toed ballet shoes. Made by Freeds in England. She hasn't worn a pair of these for fifty one years.. a long time.

With these tucked into her bag, she went across the road to see if Anita was available to cut her hair.. all off! Not many women hairdressers can cut like this but Anita cuts mens' hair all day long, so she knew she'd 'get' what she wanted and.. she did! £20.00 later, including tip.. she was on a bus coming home.

Lunch was Chinese vegetables with rice noodles and the contents of a tin of spicy crab plonked on top. I was still doing my 'I don't want very much to eat' mode, silly me. So she tempted me with little bits of raw green vegetables.. I nibbled a few, just to please her.

Then off she went again, this time to the Glaucoma Clinic at Moorfields. They are truly amazing, she turned up with her hospital number, told the receptionist what the problem was and they said "This is absolutely not a problem, we'll get your notes and she'll see you as soon as she can" and she was seen at 4.45pm.

This is a totally different family of drug, with no preservative, each dose is just enough in a phial for one drop in each eye, she takes this new one morning and night and also Lanaprost, again with no preservative, last thing at night. This new drug had none of that other drugs contents in it, let's hope it does the trick and that NO hives appear.. fingers crossed.

Home again, luckily just missing the rush hour, she dropped the new prescription off at her surgery and arranged to pick up the prescription next Wednesday. There are only 30 days supply in each box so the chemist at Moorfields told her to always have a months' supply spare.

Do you realise that it is Easter in the not too distant future? Fanny asked her to go over to Mallorca but the price of air tickets to Spain for Semana Santa (Christ's Week) have always been stupid and this year they're beyond absurd because people aren't flying to Egypt or Morocco and who can blame them for not wanting to?

But that doesn't mean she's excused her Easter duties! More about those later.. in another post and nearer or even after the event, as we don't want to spoil some people's fun!

She eating grapes and almonds, I have had a large amount of walnuts, my new passion, together with a huge, very sweet white grape. She will finish tapping iPad for me, put her second lot of drops in and read the papers and then we are calling it an early night.

She has to organise stuff here tomorrow and then go to look at the Knitting dept in Peter Jones for a pattern to give Pat, she wants an old fashioned sweater which has snowflakes or something similar over the shoulders, she has one in black with a red pattern but it's very 'wintery', so mid blue with yellow would be pretty.

Then at 09.30am on Friday the Freeholder's aerial man is coming to install new cables down from the roof. I am not saying a word, just watch my eyes! ChuckleChuckle. PipPip, dear Readers, PipPip.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 16th, 2016.

SIGH.. SOME DAYS YOU JUST HAVE TO ADMIT THINGS AREN'T GREAT & 'GO HOME'..

Today, for her, was one of those days.. she's dismal & a bit 'low'.. read very depressed.

A very sweet doctor saw her when she went on an unscheduled visit to the Vascular Unit. She looked at the horrid bulgy bruised place on her 'good' leg and said "this is very weird, are you taking any different medication, have you got anything else weird going on?", she then showed her the nasty dark marks on her thighs left by hives and the couple that are slowly, very slowly, going down.

"What! It looks as if you've been burnt with a cigarette, what is the drug, what are you taking it for", so she explained about the Timolol Maleate - that's the name I couldn't remember - and how she just cannot take it but has to go back to Moorfields again. "Certainly you cannot take this, that's a really incredibly strong reaction to a drug and they look very sore, it is almost certainly the cause of this problem on your leg, you must show your consultant this and the other marks".

And then she used mama's mobile phone to photograph them for mama, who is pretty clever but not that double jointed!

She came home via the market and bought us both a treat.. two of our favourite melons. We tend to eat our lunch later than at lunchtime and combine it with our supper at about 5.00pm and, for a treat, we have fruit and nuts at about 8.00pm, then I go to bed.. with mouse poisonous food!

Who knew that mice cannot eat Grapes and Walnuts? Both of which I love, so no more mice come a'calling and, at long last, my nights are peaceful.

She's back to Charing Cross to the audio dept tomorrow, home for a few hours and then off to the afternoon clinic at Moorfields. Life ain't very exciting at the moment, she feels not-so-great and is bored of feeling like this.

It is dreary when your body is sad and blue and these wretched things make her want to scream with their itching, clothes, which you have to wear, scratch the tops of the itchy hives and she would so dearly love to be someone else for a couple of months or just be able to hibernate and wake up with 'everything' better.

I know exactly how she feels, for that so-called nice man, Matthew my vet, has now told mama that my wretched collar has to stay on for at least another six weeks.. ugh. So here we are.. both in the ugh. But life is like this.. you can't expect it to be wonderful all the time ~ why not, say I?

GeeGee Parrot.
March 15th, 2016.

IT'S TAKEN WEEKS TO LOSE 4.5lbs THAT SHE GAINED BY EATING THAT LEBANESE YUMYUM.. SHE WON'T BE DOING THAT AGAIN!

Yes folks, it's there in her own handwriting, on December 28th she weighed in at 9.11.5.

Then she went on that greedy raid of all things Lebanese and delicious and gained 4.5lbs. Therefore, with a couple of weeks of staying the same and a couple of gaining a lb, it has taken her since January to lose them and to get back to 9.11.5 lbs.

She left the group wearing her early Easter present from Pat. A crushed raspberry short cardigan, the back is plain and the front has a cable that twists and the sleeves are bracelet length!

How cute is that! Particularly as she has a couple of plain sleeveless tops that will look very pretty underneath it, she'll get a lot of wear out of it, that's for sure.. what a sweet woman she is. They spoke of Anthony, who hasn't come to group for ages.. he has been very ill and has had dreadful hives, boy, oh boy, does she feel sorry for him!

Pauline had been and gone by she time she got there, she's in a play in Wimbledon at Easter time and they were doing a full dress rehearsal at lunch time.

She left the group and caught a bus to Chinatown, for we were down to one piece of pak choi and a couple of beans, so kai lan, choi sum and beans went plop into her basket, along with a tin of straw mushrooms and a packet of rice vermicelli. Green vegetables are counted as free food, it's a good thing we like them, isn't it?

On her way home she called MailBox and found that Emma Worwood had sent her facial products. She came home via their shop having picked up the package. 'Nice' treat for your skin to have proper products especially tailored for your condition.

There's a piece of bavette steak in the fridge at home which will do three days, it's marinating in a covered dish and with some vermicelli and kai lan, it made us a good supper which we had at 6.30pm. I had a little piece of the steak, a stem of kai lan and a bean and we were a happy pair that ate our suppers together in silence..

Tomorrow she has to go back for a check-up with the vascular team at Charing Cross, that will pretty much take up the day as you cannot go somewhere before and she's no idea when they'll see her, so you can't plan for anything afterwards.

So off to the library she'll go in the early morning, she is just about to finish the biography on the 18th century actress, Mrs. Dora Jordan.. lordy, what a sad tale it is, for despite great happiness and great success, she was treated appallingly, by a couple of lovers by whom she had children, then by the Duke of Clarence with whom she was with for twenty years (he then became King William 4th) but most terrifyingly by a couple of her sons-in-law who ran up massive debts in her name.

She died penniless in Saint Cloud, despite one of her daughters being the Countess of Errol (her father had been William 4th) and one of her sons being the Earl of Munster, (also the child of King William 4th).

Somehow, they 'neglected' to take care of their mother and she died penniless in exile, there was one woman who was with her when she died, who returned to London, took a sum of money owing to Mrs. Jordan from the old King's lawyers and disappeared, together with the diamond ring that Dora Jordan had always worn and neither she nor the ring were ever heard of or seen again.

It made her shudder, for it brought back to her what her eldest brother did to Constance, which is not a happy tale either, of treachery and theft.

Oi vey.. families.. and siblings.. ugh.

It was a bright and sunny day today but oh, her ears and whiskers, it was cold, bitterly cold. And as she changed the sheets this morning before she went out, there is a hot pad heating up the bed before we get in to it, which will be quite shortly.

It was the new optical drops that caused the appaling hives, the inside of her thighs look as if she has been burnt, likewise on her tummy, for the drug has, literally, burnt her skin from the inside.

Thank goodness for the homeopathic remedies, she is back taking the Lanaprost and will go to see her eye consultant on Wednesday and show her the burns.. we think she will have the same reaction as the homeopathic chemist. UGH!

GeeGee Parrot.
March 14th, 2016.

THANK GOD FOR HOMEOPATHY.

Now where we? Ah, yes, I was bound for pole by front door and she was bound for Ainsworth's.

They are Homeopathic Chemists @ 36. New Cavendish Street, London W1G-8UF. Tel # 020 7935 5330. And yesterday, Saturday, they were open until 4.00pm.

She arrived clutching the eye drops, the good guy Lanoprost and the bad guy, whose name I cannot remember and spoke to one of the chemists (everyone who serves you @ Ainsworths is a fully trained chemist / pharmacist).

He examined the hives in her left elbow, they looks as if something has scratched and bitten her, it was very sore and extremely itchy, she told him that her body was covered in them and showed him the two areas on the back of her neck.

"Hum", he said and disappeared into the back of the shop to confer with another chemist and about three minutes later, he came back with a tube of ointment, "this should help stop the itchiness but you obviously must go and tell your consultant at Moorfields about this side effect, you cannot go on taking this, they will have to give you something else".

"We are giving you a homeopathic remedy for you to take 3 x a day in a clean mouth (this means you have had nothing in your mouth for 30 minutes and take nothing afterwards for another 30 minutes), you must also tell your GP what we have given you so it is on your case notes".

She paid, not very much money, thanked him and left.

Upon arriving home, she dealt with all the bites.. and oh, what utter bliss! For almost immediately, the cream (which has NONE of those awfully bad guys like : SLS or Parabens, or Petrochemicals or colourants in it) started to heal her poor and much troubled skin.

What is it? It is made from Calendula, Hypericum and Urtica.. and the tiny balls of Homeopathic Remedy are Narayani Mix 102 Skin Itch Histamine 30C.

She slept last night and so did I! For she had read that grapes and walnuts are poisonous to mice! Who knew? So they were in my bowls last night, just in case I woke up starving, there was just a little something with which to amuse Beaky. And not one mouse came a'calling! Bliss.. they are such pesky folk, fancy climbing into my cage and nicking my yumyum.

Rob is going to make a fiendishly clever case for my cage, there has to a drop down front so she can clean my tray out and put me into it at night but all the edges of the box will be covered in metal and the air holes will be covered in two layers of very fine metal mesh. That'll stop them! Bastards.. we hate them.

She is meticulous about not leaving anything out in YumYum HQ for them, so could not think why they were here.. until she saw one evil mouse scampering out of my cage with a monkey nut in its' mouth and realised what was going on.

Today, everywhere in our bedroom was cleaned and vacuumed, including the top of the big cupboard, don't ask me how she gets the big vacuum machine up there but she manages it somehow, she vacuumed up empty shells, gave me fresh paper, cleaned my bowls, clean water, new yumyum.

I celebrated all of this by climbing into my water bowl (an old souffle dish) and having a good soak.. this drives her potty as she has to climb back up, take it down, clean the bowl, refresh my water and put it back again.. it's a good game.. sniggersnigger.

No lunch for her today, she worked all the way through, then stopped and we ate an early supper at half past five, she cooked two duck breasts last night and tonight, we had rice noodles, kai lan and pak choi with the second duck breast cold with the fatty skin taken off, sliced very thinly, oooh.. so tasty with a couple of slurps of hot chilli and garlic sauce.

We're tired.. she's done a lot of bending and stretching and pulling things about, I have flapped about a lot, up and down the hall multiple times, so she's going to settle in and read more of her marvellous library book, I am going to cogitate my feathery tumtum and tomorrow is, as Scarlet told us, another day.

Weigh-in and hospital for her.. I have no idea what excitement I could get up to but who knows? Do you have plans for the week? PipPip, Dear Readers, PipPip.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 13th, 2016.
PostScript: Hugo's birthday, he would have been 96. 

A CHOCOLATE FRUIT & NUT RING.. OH, BRING ON THE BELLS!

Bells.. Ring.. gettit? Ah well, it is Saturday and not every one has had such a scrummy fast breaking plate of yumyum the like of which I've just scoffed. She gave me these edible treasures to make up for all of her to'ing and fro'ing backward and forewards in the middle of last night.

These new new optical drugs obviously have the itchy same thing in them as well, for she was driven 'potty' last night, she tried everything that she possessed to try and stop them being so painful, the trusty old favourite aka Rescue Remedy Emergency Cream.. nah, it didn't even 'touch' them, jelly with essential oils of geranium and cyprus, that lasted for about five minutes, calamine cream with menthol crystals, about the same.

Eureka.. an ice pack! At midnight she was found rootling about in frosty cupboard and to her joy, she found a small plastic icepack, the like of which you would use in a sandwich box, she wrapped it in gauze and came back to bed, oooh, bliss. She swappped it between the most aggressively itchy areas. The worst being a pair of hives on the inside of her left elbow.. grrr and one large single one in her right armpit.

And at some point she fell asleep, to wake up to the telephone ringing. It was Wizard apologising for not contacting her sooner, what is wrong with one of the big Mobile systems? Quite a few people she knows are having problems, texts not being received, data missing or just no connection? She's very glad she retained her land line, that's for sure.

She's off to speak with a pharmacist at Ainsworth's, the Homeopathic Chemists in New Cavendish Street, London W1 and will take with her the two boxes of eye drops, for there has to be something homeopathic that will counteract these dreadfully scratchy hives.

And whilst she is out, she is collecting a packet, well, several packets of things as she wants to make something I have never seen, she says she hasn't made it for at least twenty years! It's a Chocolate Ring. It can be as fancy or as plain as you like but the basic ingrdients are..

Melted dark chocolate. Puffed Rice Cereal, she uses CocoPops, well, she did and hopes they're still made. First of all, measure how much of the cereal you need to fill the ring and then take some out, add a lot of chopped up dried fruits which you've marinated in something like White Rum. Apricots, cherries, raisins, sultanas, candied peel, barberries, chopped and whole nuts.

Strain the fruits and keep the liquid in a glass jar for the next time you need to marinate dried fruits.

Melt your dark chocolate, pour this over all the other ingredients in a large bowl, mix them together and pack them all into a ring.

If you are doing it for children, you omit the alcohot and soak the fruits in grape juice or black currant cordial.

When it has hardened, do this overnight so it has time to set properly, you gently dip the ring into warm water and put it down onto a flat surface and give it a sharp tap to get the ring out.

Decorate the ring with glacé fruits and chopped nuts by dipping them into melted chocolate and sticking them into / onto the ring.

The first time she had this was in Washington DC when a dear friend Bettina Luttrell gave a smart 'luncheon' for her in February 1973, the luncheon was held at her club, an small private members' club called The F Street Club. Note: The club is now closed.

She served it on many occasions and given it away many times, it is wonderful for Christmas and at Easter and says that it looks very pretty if you pack the middle with lots of different sized and highly coloured marzipan eggs (or you can cheat and get a bag of baby, foiled wrapped eggs!)

Now she's off and I'm going to doze on pole by front door, it's dry and not chilly, eureka!

GeeGee Parrot.
March 12th, 2016.
PostScript: Wizard is making me a Mouse Proof box! Those cheeky people have now learnt how to come in at night and raid my yumyum right from underneath Beaky! He is going to make a box into which my cage will fit, the edges will be covered in metal and the air holes will have two layers of wire mesh over them. The other advantage will be that it will be dark so her reading light won't keep me wake.

Liberte Equalite & Fraternite..

There is a sad tale in the newspapers today. It is the story of a Frenchwoman who married her teenage sweetheart some forty seven years ago, had four children by him, three girls and a boy. He sexually abused the girls and frequently hit his son.

She was estranged from her parents and brothers and had no friends. His violence was 'an open secret' in the village where they lived.

After being hit once too often herself, she took a hunting rifle and shot him in the back, killing him. Her son had committed suicide the day before she killed her husband but his body was only discovered the day after she was taken into police custody.

What goes through a person's brain that tells them it is 'ok' to beat another person for decades and equally, what goes through the person's brain who is beaten for those decade and allows the spouse / perpetrator to beat them and sexually abuse their children? We don't know, we find it tragic beyond belief.

But her father Hugo had very rigid ideas on this subject.. it was "You don't beat children, women or animals"*. The man in France had obviously never thought about his own countrys' national motto which in English means..

Freedom ~ Equality ~ Fraternity.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 11th, 2016.
Postscript: *This was Hugo talking to her brothers, he also hated women who were violent towards animals, children and husbands.

IRANIAN 'JEWELS'.

Truly they are the finest of fine 'Jewels' and originate from Iran.

Do you know what I am talking about? They come with a hard skin and give juice and fruit, both of which are delicious, the juice is sold either as juice (which has usually been pasturised) or in the form of a molasses / syrup. And you can, if you're very lucky, find Turkish Delight made out of this juice.

This, Dear Readers, is a wondrous thing! We were incredibly fortunate to be given some about a year ago which came from a very famous shop in Istanbul and it was so good that we can still taste it! Yes, it was THAT GOOD!

*On a slightly different tack, the fruit contains an Alkaloid drug called Pelletierine. This alkaloid stuns worms so effectively that it seems a good idea to make a point of getting your children (whole family) to eat them, followed by dried apricots, apples or bananas for the purge.

If you hear the school has an outbreak of Tapeworms or if you see your animal has them this treatment would be a great precaution, if your pet has them, then your children (child) is more than likely to get them as well.*

On her jaunt to the market to purchase fruit and meat after being at Moorfields yesterday, she saw several boxes of them for sale, marked at 2 for a £1.00. They come in different varities and size but these were the biggest variety with the dark skins and they're usually £1.00 for one fruit, but they're now in season and coming into the street markets and Middle Eastern shops at a 'good' price

'One for me and one for GeeGee', she thought and plopped two into her basket. Why didn't I mention them in last nights' post? Because I didn't see them until this morning, I only saw the grapes which she washed and took to bed with us.. yes, she peels my grapes, this way she gets double the fibre, well, that's my excuse for being idle.

After a beakful of hummus, mixed seeds and my soft boiled egg, it was a surprise to see a fruit appear on a cutting plate (so not to lose the juice). LookieLookie. Oh. Red Jewels, hundreds of them!

How wonderful, such a treat. But do you know, Dear Readers, about what we write? We hope you do for they are marvellous and Beaky loves to 'sling' their juice everywhere.. they are.. of course.. usually known by their common-garden name which is Pomegranate.. but to us, they're Rubies beyond compare.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 10th, 2016.
PostScript: *Taken from Valerie Ann Worwoods' book. The Fragrant Pharmacy. Page 245.
ISDN # 0-553-40397-4. Bantam Books. Published 1990.

TWO WIMPY DOGS..

Greetings from deepest Knightsbridge, where the weather is disgusting. It's not snowing and Mr. Jack Frost hasn't been out and about scattering his icy wares upon the ground but it's cold, wet and very dismal. And it appears that large swathes of the UK are experiencing the same 'weather'.

She did not plan to go out into it until late this afternoon, for the Wizard was due before noon to come and measure up the storeroom for shelving and to try to mend our tv which has now gone completely bonkers. We now get a rather unattractive display of black and white lines and no sound and yes, she had her hearing aids in! 

She didn't use the evil drops last night but went back to the old ones, however, she is still reacting to that one they gave her two weeks ago, there are hives allover her stomach which she will show her consultant this afternoon at Moorfields. The new drug also made her eyes sore, there must be something else she can use which doesn't have these side effects?

Wizard came, asked how old the indoor aerial cable was and turned up his nose when she said about ten years, then he went out to look at the aerial wire that goes to the antennae on the roof.. "ah, there's your problem, the cable is brittle and damaged, I suggest you get another interior cable AND a new one fitted to the antennae on the roof down to here".. simples.. now to get the landlord to pay for it.. OR say we'll do it and invoice him.

She grabbed her wallet and went to Peter Jones for aerial cable, ugh, not nice out there.

The new cable made quite a bit of difference but a lot of channels are not getting through, it is the antennae wire, it needs to be changed.

Wizard had fiddled with her old laptop, downloaded a new software system for watching any region dvd and put on a new anti-virus system for us. He didn't have time to do the measuring but is coming back in about a week to do this. She gave him a bundle of our Chinese vegetables and off he went to deliver a mended laptop.

Such a nice man, we are extremely upset to hear that he is not very well plus he has couple of dodgy discs in his back, thank goodness he is highly qualified in so many fields and is able to earn money by working from home on very techical stuff. Which is why with his dodgy back, he cannot be the one to scamper about and do the external wiring for us.

We made a quick bite to eat, she steamed some vegetables and had a cold chop left over from last night, she had gone whilst Wizard was here to Peter Jones to collect a new internal cable she knew it was gruesome out there, but as she left to go to Moorfields, it got considerably worse.

Ugh.. it was now chucking it down with rain and so cold.. quickquick under the ground to Old Street Tube. Then along the green line into the hospital, she went into the Clinic and explained to the very switched on receptionist what had happened.

He smiled and said "she's here, I will go and see if she'll see you and we'll will get someone to go for your notes".. she sat down and waited ten minutes, he called her name and she went forward into the clinic.

There was the charming consultant who smiled and said "what's this about hives and scratching, we can't have that, now let us just see what your pressure is, ohhh, ten in both eyes, that's much better, so now I think what we'll do, is to give you Lanaprost in the eveing and this new one which doesn't have so much of that itchy thing in it for you to take in the morning. With reference to the other one, some people can take it and some can't and you certainly can't, for those are nasty looking things. Here's your new prescription and a copy for your GP, and I'll see you in a month".

And she was out!

Underground by the Northern and Piccadilly Line to South Kensington, a bus to North End Road for fruit and meat, calves liver and a few sausages, grapes and two pomegranates. Back on a bus and off at our stop, into our Lotto Shop to claim a Lucky Dip for tonight and the £25.00 she won last Saturday, then home again home again jiggedy jig.

So she went out for walks today, which is more than Ginger and Panda did, they looked out at their weather in Pewsey at 06.30 hours and said "No thanks, we'll stay indoors".

GeeGee Parrot.
March 9th, 2016.

STRETCH. POINT THOSE TOES & BEND THOSE KNEES. STRETCH..

How many of you ever point your toes OR stand on your toes and walk on them?  You should you know, otherwise you aren't exercising any muscles in your foot. You might think you're doing the right think by shuffling along in flat shoes, but you aren't!

All your mucles inter-connect, so in de words of de song.. "De hip bone connected to de thigh bone, de thigh bone connected to de leg bone" and so on and it's all true!

Having had the good news that she hasn't broken a bone in her right foot, she's going to take that Barre Class on Friday. Leggings, ballet shoes, a t.shirt and a cardigan.. and off she'll go up the road.

Men and women alike do not realise how important our leg muscles are as we get older.

It is quite scary to see how people whom we know to be her age are not steady on their pins or walk slowly.. it ain't good folks! You should try to walk a bit further and a bit faster every day, apart from your legs, you must realise that your heart and your lungs are involved in exercise.. and they're kinda important as well!

We had lunch at lunch time! This was so out of character, that I thought she was joking and having a laugh (at my expense) until I smelt the pork chops on the griddle. Carrots, kai lan and spinach were steamed, two chops were seasoned and put onto a hot griddle, no fat, it's a lovely way to cook pork.

One trip up to New Horizons with some clothes, books and a huge bag of good hangers which are surplus to requirements. Then for the second trip, the library books went into WW and a comforter was pushed in on top. This had to go to one of the big washing machines at the laundrette in Cale Street.

Onto the library, quick change of books, then back to the laundrette through St. Luke's Gardens.

OH.. A Silver Sable! She whistled and his head shot up.. talk about a flash back, they're a veryvery rare sight in the UK. Ricky was the last one she saw and he died in 1978. The dog was large, a truly beautiful example of his breed, she went up to the woman who smiled when she said "hello, he's not an English dog is he, I had one when I was a child and both his parents were German dogs", the woman said "you are right, we brought him in with us from Germany eighteen months ago, we have never seen another with his colouring here".

Go on-line and look at Silver Sable, German Shepherd to see what we are talking about.

They talked for a bit and it made her smile, he had a lot of mannerisms that Ricky had.. the Germans have been much stricter on the breeding of their Shepherds, you don't see the lower back or the his-displacea so much, their dogs stand taller at the hind-quarters. He was a big boy.. just like Ricky.

They smiled at each other and she walked onto the laundrette, the comforter was ready, washed and dried. She paid the girls and walked home.

Then she did a bit of rootling about on iPad to find someone, called them to make an appointment, confirmed her optician's appointment on the 18th and set out her stuff for her visit tomorrow to Moorfields.

She cannot go on using this new optic drops, she'll tear her skin to shreds sooner or later and it makes her eyes sore and as for the cough, it drives her (and me) nuts at night. They'll have to change her onto another formula or back onto the original one.

Grey sky, gloomy but dry under foot, I am off to sit on front door pole and she's making a pot of our favourite LapySang, all is well in our world, as we hope it is in yours?

GeeGee Parrot.
March 8th, 2016.

Test results.. last Monday her tumtum thought her throat had been slit..

Nil By Mouth is how you have to be when they take your blood, from midnight the night before until they take your blood. The results of which she heard today.

Her Cholesterol level is way down, everything else is measuring what it should but her Iron, D3 and Thyroid levels are all too low. The X-Ray of her foot shows a tiny Calcium Spur, not a broken bone and actually for the past three days, it has been much less painful.

The person two infront of her was with her GP for over half an hour, so she apologised when it was my mama's turn for the delay, no need said mama, I think it really nice that you take this amount of time with us and that patient obviously needed the extra time with you.

Her heart and lungs were checked, all ok, they agreed that it is, almost certainly, the new optic drug which is causing the new rash and the hacking cough, she has to go and see Moorfields about it and take the drug with her and show them the rash.

Then she ran like a March Hare for a bus to Fulham Broadway for it is Monday.. aka weigh-in day. There was just a couple of people left in the hall but they said "no problem, come in and we'll weigh you.." yippee.. lost 1lb. 9 stone 12 lbs.. aka 138 lbs.

The difference in the degree of pain in her right knee is staggering! There are some days now when she only gets the pain at night, before it was there pretty much all of the time and as for walking up long flights of escalators, well, she wasn't able to do it, now she can walk up most flights and going down is also much more comfortable.

Too many people think she's doing this just to be slim again, they're not aware of how both her poor old wonky knees took the brunt of the polio in 1956 or the damage which was done to her right knee and lower leg, in the mobylette smash in 1969.

Her GP is, of course, thrilled! Cholesterol and weight both down, she's ordered a more in-depth test for Thryoid and we are going to handle the Iron and the D3. A quick call to our beloved herbalist Christine @ Granary Herbs will get bottles of Tincure of Stinging Nettle and Dandylion on its' way to us. And the sunlight level for D3 will be increased as soon as we get out into the fresh air and start to do some gardening.

Wizard is coming to sort out our electronics on Thursday, soon all will be well in our home again.

We have had our early supper, fish, steamed spinach, kai lan and carrots with vegetable juice. Easy to digest and very easy and tasty to eat. She's finishing the biography of Dora Jordan by Claire Tomalin. Interesting book for several reasons, she finds social and political history fascinating and this book certainly has lots of both.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 7th, 2016.

YOU'VE GOT E-MAIL.. made possible by Roy Tomlinson.

Back in time her eldest brother worked for a company in Boston and had a slightly younger friend and colleague called Ray Tomlnson. A bright clever man, this company didn't employ anyone who wasn't, he came up with the idea of specific person to person electronic mail.

In the latter part of the 80's she worked on a contract for six months @ AT&T. The job specification was to find premises large enough in London for massive main frame computers to be built that would handle this electronic mail.

Every month two or three very bright boffins from Trenton, NJ would appear and physically build these monsters making them able to be increased in size and capability, it was a vast, extraordinary project for an amazing system, that from anywhere in the world you could and would be able to send and receive e-mail.

All dreamt up by Ray Tomlinson, whose death was announced late last night by Raytheon.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 7th, 2016.

"JUST SAY NO".. has died.

It was such a small and simple sentence but its' impact was huge. It was said by Nancy Reagan, the wife of Ronald Reagan the American President. A woman who stood by her man and went on 'standing' for many years after he died in 2004.

She knew several people who knew the Reagans well from their life in California and through their time in Washington DC. One particular friend of ours worked with Mrs. Reagan on her anti-drug campaign. What a terrendous pull she had, her list of contacts and her address book were legendary.

And she made sure that people were thanked, her manners were impeccable. She believed in standing up for what she believed in and we wish there were more people of her stature on the public stage today.

She has died today. My mama never met her but knows that a huge amount of men and women of all nationalities throughout the world feel the same loss at her passing.. For 'Just say no' saved a lot of children from drug related deaths.

Thank you Mrs. Reagan.. thank you.. and God Bless You.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 6th, 2006.

I KNOW THIS IS MORE THAN WEIRD BUT WE HAVE DISCOVERED THAT SOMEONE INVISIBLE & UNKNOWN LIVES IN OUR HOME.

Now we know it sounds more than a little strange but it is the only explanation that we have come up with and you know that two heads are better than one when solving mysterious things.

It all started when she realised that Wizard would need a clear path to the window in our bedroom. Plucking up courage to tackle the heap of stuff, such a 'good' descriptive word, she started sorting it out and realised it wasn't half as bad as she had thought, because, in fact, the huge pile of ? was only a tiny neat pile of laundry sitting on the top of my other big cage!

With that cage moved back up on top of a cupboard, there was the clear path.. phew.. relief all round, as I thought I might be called in to help at one point it looked so dire! There was a big plastic storage box sitting on the floor, what was in it? Eureka! Her spare light bulbs of all different types, the box usually lives under the bed, so it went back there.

Then there was another box, what is in here? OH! Oh dear.. what do you do with momentoes? Most of what was in this box were her photos and paperwork from the six week trip that she did through Scandinavia, Poland, Germany and Russia back in 1994.. sigh.

There was the paperwork on a restoration job on which she had worked for Mrs. Anne Getty of San Francisco. This can all go plus the other work related papers, she thought but I will leave this box for another day. when I am shredding papers.

She watered the two orchids and dusted the window table.

Everything that wasn't in its' rightful place or didn't have a proper home, she threw towards the bedroom door, I decided it was time to leave the scene of the crime and flew to the door pole. Having tidied up her mess, she picked up the library books that need to be changed and put them on the hall chest of drawers.

Too dismal and wet out there, she decided and changed her plans to go to the library tomorrow in the morning and got on with her blitz. The skirts she had pulled out of the cupboard yesterday she took into the bathroom, having put water into the tank and switched it on, she used her little steam travel iron to steam the skirts back and front.

Any moth that thought about eating these skirts had an evil shock! For this steam will have killed them and a light amount of water sprayed on wool with have the effect of bringing the fabric back into shape as skirts and trousers can stretch a little. They're hanging on the shower pole to dry.

Into the kitchen.. pan, a little filtered water, two carrots, a handful of kai lan and a tin of tuna in water. Carrots sliced into cold water, gas on, medium bowl out of white slave cupboard, aka dishwasher, garlic thumped and finely chopped into the bowl, a small slurp of olive oil, seasoning, a bigger slurp of chilli and ginger sauce, kai lan chopped in two into the now hot water, lid on for less than two minutes on a medium heat.

Heat off, pan strained into a big mug and the vegetables into the bowl, tuna strained and added on top, mixed in. Slurp, a big spoonful of this onto my saucer, yes, of course I eat all of these things, how delicious. Pan scrubbed, bowl and fork washed and put away.

Small steps brought in and a top eye level cupboard opened to put away some glasses. "What on earth is that?", she said, this is a cupboard that is seldom opened, it has on its' top shelf spare tea cups and saucers.

I peered round the door as she pulled out two boxes, one small and one large, and a plastic storage box which was full but full of what? There was no label attached to the box and she ALWAYS cuts the labels off packets and cellotapes it onto storage boxes. As to what was in this food box, who knows, she tipped it into a paper bag and it is in the rubbish.

The small box was a box of 'Aunt Jemina's Corn Bread Mix' and the larger one was 'Aunt Jemina's Buckwheat Flour Pancake Mix'.. we have never ever seen either of these two packets before in our lives but the really creepy thing is.. they were open, somebody had used them.

Whoever is living with us eats Buckwheat Pancakes and Corn Bread.. however, we don't..

GeeGee Parrot.
March 6th, 2016.

They came, hand delivered @ 7.30pm, ribs with cumin & chilli.. slurp.

The outside has not been ventured into today. We had everything that two grown girls could possibly have wanted so after a couple of telephone calls, she dug out the tall step ladder and went into her walk-in clothes cupboard.

Ok GeeGee-JuJu, let's see what doesn't suit or fit me any longer in here, the process of culling went quite quickly. She went further up the ladder and saw two big bags up on the top shelf, pushed into the corner, one was shrink wrapped and it had a label on it saying S.H's OFFICE CLOTHES, how amazing, she thought, I had completely forgotten about that package, I wonder what clothes are in there?

And what's in that huge Lidl bag? And there, to her utter astonishment, were her long lost (for about two years) summer shoes! Her most favourite Majorcan woven leather slip on shoes in tan and navy, her exquisitely comfy 'jelly' shoes and others that she had thought that, for some demented reason, she had thrown away!

Very curious! Why had she put them away right at the top of the cupboard? Who knows, we don't but at least she's got them back!

There are lots of nice clothes to give away, you can't alter dresses properly and these, plus a glorious Georgio Armani jacket and several skirts, will now go off to a good home. We took delivery from Tereza of children's summer clothes this afternoon, lucky Poppy, she is just the right age and size to inherit clothes from Georgia and Rebecca who live at the top of our house.

Then back into the cupboard she went with a mirco-fibre dusting brush and a spray bottle of water mixed with cedar wood essential oil, moth hate this smell and it was time to replenish the moth protection in this cupboard.

Spray spray squirt squirt.. then she came out and shut the door.

And happened to look at her mobile. Oh, no, we might be too late! There were three texts sent about an hour and a half ago by Tereza asking her if she would like some hot, spicy ribs? She replied yes, if you haven't eaten them all? And three minutes later, an order of spicy cumin and chilli ribs together with a side order of skinny beans was hand delivered to her by Georgia.

WHAT A TREAT! Spicy and chilli hot! Perfect.

The shrink wrapped parcel? Lordy! She'd really forgotten about these clothes. They were her San Francisco office clothes, gaberdine and linen black and navy skirts and trousers (size US 4), four white t.hirts with short sleves, six identical very long linen dresses in different colours, four wool jackets, identical in style but in different colours, (dresses and jackets size US 8).

The jackets fit perfectly! So she sprayed them lightly with water and hung them up to air in the bathroom, likewise the dresses, they need to be steamed but not yet, they're sleveless so can be packed away in a drawer with soap to guard them against moth.

The trousers and skirts are too small at the moment! But by the time she's started taking a dance class and stopped feeding her face with oily Chinese food, they'll be fine!

What an extraordinary productive day with several surprises.. very nice surprises indeed.. and she's oh, so veryvery happy to have found her Majorcan woven leather shoes. And the four wool jackets
are pretty, they're in a bright sunny yellow, a vibrant orange, a rich deep pink and a pale pink, perfect for Spring!

Or to wear now to try and 'jolly' Spring along a bit!

Time for bed.. what a busy day, the sitting room is slowly emerging from chaos, the sofa does at least look like it should do, the huge bag of table linen she's giving away is now in the hall together with other stuff that's she donating to charity.

That charity stuff will go out on Tuesday, she's seeing her nice GP on Monday, running down to weigh-in at 1.00pm, Pauline and she are coming back up this way to go to New Horizons for a late coffee and she'll take her unwanted hangers along to give them.

Tomorrow is library day and she'll be doing more work in the sitting room.. ironing! Oh goodie! You all know how much I love the "whoosh" of the steam iron, I wonder if we could have Salsa music as well? A girl can dream, can't I!

PipPip.. asta manana.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 5th, 2016.
PostScript: Last week 2 of her numbers came up and she won a Lucky Dip. This week 3 of her numbers came up, she'll collect £25.00 from the Lotto shop on her way to the library. 

THE GAME OF POKER.. AKA LIFE.

On her way home yesterday, she received a call saying "where are you, if you are out, come for tea on your way home" so she stopped off for a cup of tea but left after only a short while.

Ok, it is quite a shock to see her if you haven't for some time as she has shrunk but her private life is private and so most friends or aquaintances are not privy to the fact that she had a dodgy vein which had to be operated on or even that she had polio as a child. Two reasons, plus her vanity, which is why she made this commitment to herself to lose weight.

You, Dear Readers, know most of the medical saga she's going through but she doesn't sit and discuss it with you and because she does have to pore over the nitty gritty with her medics, she isn't inclined to discuss this stuff with other people as well.

Back to yesterday's tea.. she walked in and took off her jacket and the interrogation started almost immediately.. Was she wearing her hearing aids, yes. HOW had she lost the weight, she explained. HOW much had she lost, she gave the lbs lost.

Then her host, who has gained over 100lbs during the last year.. we kid you not.. said "what rubbish, I am on the Heart Diet from the such and such Institute in California" and proceeded to bore the pants off mama with some ludicrous diet. Yes, you probably could lose a lot of weight on it, as it is virtual starvation but you couldn't live on it for the rest of your life.

Mama smiled and drank her tea and then the person said "Oh course, you need Botox as you have lost much too much weight in your face" and with that, puffed smoke at mama. Who coughed, finished her tea and stood up and said "thanks for the tea but no thanks about the Botox" and went out of the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" the person said and turning mama said "home, it's late, GeeGee needs to be fed, I really don't need someone telling me that I am stupid doing something which doesn't work, when clearly it has, thank you for my tea, goodnight" and with that, leaving the person with their mouth open, she left.. and plans never to return.

In life, as in poker, you have to know when to fold or hold and this friendship has folded.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 5th, 2016.
PostScript: She has just received a telephone call from this person asking her if she was ok and saying how nice it was to see her.. the unknown nmber has now been lodged as 'don't answer'.

Poor man, he wasn't a numpty after all.

She had to get Cypress essential oil urgently, that's why she took off out of here in such a fashion earlier today. When she came back, we then 'hung' about waiting for numpty to arrive. When he came, she said "why didn't you make sure you had all the corresponding meter numbers Ramir".

And he scowled at her and said "but I did! I don't undertstand why they sent me back again but THIS time I'm going to take a photograph of it, so that there will be no doubt that it IS the right one".. and then she 'got it', the silly managing agents had done this deliberately.

Anyway, she apologised to Ramir and said "in future Ramir, always take the meter reading by way of a photograph as it then clearly shows those stupid secretaries the meter number and the reading", he agreed and went off, as annoyed with them as she was!

She sent them an email telling them that it had been a stupid waste of Ramir's time as he had given them the correct figures and that next time the meters needing reading, they were to send some between the hours of 08.00 - 09.00.. only.

She grabbed a long jacket, gloves, basket and a Beanie, for it might have been a bright sunny day and 8 degrees but the wind chill factor was high.. brrr. A bus took her up Shaftesbury Avenue to Chinatown and she went into Garrard Street to get rice vermicelli, lots of ginger root and Chinese greens.

Pak Choi and Kai Lan, yum, our favourite is Kai Lan, we do grow both at the allotments but they don't self seed sadly, unlike Mizuna. However, we can at least buy it from the Chinese supermarkets when we can't grow it ourselves in the Winter.

She bought her weekly supply and was about to catch the bus home when the idea of a simple but slurpy Chinese meal came into her mind and "why not" she thought to herself. So she turned and went into one of the scruffy restaurants off the main street, the waitress, who has known her for many a year, smiled at her and Chinese tea and chopsticks were brought.

A hot and spicy soup was followed by spicy duck on noodles with greens.. ahh, do you get know why she was having Chinese food! Think about it, she's after that sinus blasting, cold and germ killing chilli oil! Hot and spicy food is one of the best way to get rid of a thick head and rattly cough. A pot of hot clean Chinese tea also helps.

Feeling a great deal better, she smiled at the girl, who never seems to age, paid the small bill and went out onto Shaftesbury Avenue to catch a bus back home.

In the dark and cold.. cold, it was bitterly cold, it won't be much above zero tonight, that's for sure.

Basket unpacked, vegetables into chilly white larder, me fed and watered. Street clothes off and into the warmest fleeciest pj's she could find, plus she has a new use for that cardigan Pat gave her, it's too big for her now, she seems to have shrunk in the last couple of weeks, and it makes the most perfect.. Bed Jacket!

Don't all roar with laughter.. it's pretty and keeps her very snug, as we don't like sleeping in too hot a bedroom, this is the perfect solution!

And that, Dear Readers, brings us almost to the end of the first week of Spring. Now if only it could be persuaded to get just a little bit warmer but they're saying we are in for bone-chillingly cold weather this month and that we might have snow for Easter, gee thanks guys, just what the shepherds, goaty folks and gardeners want to hear. Hibernation sounds attractive, do Parrots hibernate, or could we?

GeeGee Parrot.
March 4th, 2016.

Bright & Light @ Eight!

Clear sky, dry ground, surely not but maybe.. yes! We're going to have a Spring Day! Oh, sunlight surely does make the world of difference to your day, doesn't it? Not having to wearing cold-busting boots or thick bone-protecting clothes is the first good thing.

Sunlight, being able to see the other end of our gardens without having to peer through gloomy fog, oh, it makes everyone chirpful is the second.. and there are several other good reasons too of course.

She's rattling away over there, such a strange noise, I have never heard her cough like this before, it's very curious, but after she gets this call at 08.15 we'll be up and into YumYum HQ and our day will start with egg and toast and for me, hummus.

She had the call, it went on for a long time, what was it about? No idea.. she seemed to be listening to whatever the other person was saying and I wasn't privy to what they were saying..

Anyway.. she has to take a bed quilt up to the laundrette, they have the huge machines, our machine isn't big enough to take a full sized bed quilt. Then a load of stuff to the local charity shop, some books to New Horizons, she has to be back here between 12.45 - 15.00 for the silly numpty to re-read the meter.. sigh.

So Chinatown will be visited in the latter part of the afternoon. Greens are what she needs.. she will make a point of asking what her particular favourite is called as all bits of it are delicious. Leaves, stem and the tiny florets.

Whoops.. got to go folks, she's got to get something urgently and be back here within the hour for that numpty is due here between 12.45 - 15.00.. pippip.. more later.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 4th, 2016.

A digestive base with a raspberry puree with patches of raspberry gelatine.. goodness.. what can she be talking about?

It's a no brainer folks.. she's describing a raspberry cheesecake, is she not?

You know, she's quite capable of making such things, I've actually seen her make them with my own eyes BUT to be hand delivered a large slice of slurpy cheesecake, is, we think, a huge treat.

Her greed, I regret to tell you, was such that it meant that I didn't even get a crumb from the base.. see what I have to put up with, huh.

She is on the mend, her voice still sounds like a rusty old file and she has a hacker of a cough but she was at least standing up for most of the day and dressed. Not in a mix of clothes that was for public viewing but as she wasn't going out, it meant no one was going to see her, so she didn't care, she was warm.

Now this is curious, we had a message from Pauline, from their slimming group, to say she's not in a good way.. with a severe rash of hives and a hacking cough, she's on anti-histamine and benovate. We are wondering whether she's had the same thing? Poor Pauline. If it is, we know how evil you feel.

We had swede and carrot mash in the late afternoon, with a small amount of beef stew, it was good, we tend to forget how swede is fabulous if cooked with carrots or sweet potatoes, especially if you grate a little allspice over the dish and add a knob of butter together with a crunch of sea salt.

Miss Piggy ate the cheesecake at about seven o'clock..

It's late, she's got an alarm set for some strange reason, she's expecting 'a call about a dog', this means it is none of my business - except is is my business, when I'm awoken at some gruesome hour.

And that numpty man whom she saw read all of the meters a couple of days ago, well, he has got to come back between 12.45 - 15.00 tomorrow to read the common parts meter again.. words fail us..  wouldn't you think to check to make sure you had them all before you left the first time?

No response from the landlord about the tv aerial, so today, she's sent an email to the TV Licensing Dept of the BBC, giving them notice that as she is not being allowed access to the aerial on the roof to see what is wrong and as she has no service, what they think she should do? Why should she pay £12.12 each month when she has no tv signal?

Nothing else to report.. a trip to Chinatown has to occur tomorrow, she's finished the supply of greens and they are the best, steamed, then chopped up over a bowl of rice noodles with garlic and grated ginger, very good for the chest and a stupid cough, which wakes me up in the night as it rattles in her throat, poor old bat, she can't help being so old.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 3rd, 2016.