WHERE DO YOU THINK YOUR BIGGEST BLOOD VESSEL IS?

We know.. we didn't do before but we surely do now! The thing that Valerie 'pounced' on and said was beating too strongly is her Abdominal Aorta. It splits several times taking blood from your heart downwards.. as, of course, the ventricals are the veins that bring it all the way back up.

Valerie, after pouncing, had said "go to your GP and get it checked out, best to be safe." As her GP now has enormous respect for Valerie, she listened to what my mum had to say this morning and said "Ok, let's see what she is talking about", she went straight to it and poked about a lot, saying "Humm, does this hurt, have you had any pain, etc etc."

She described what she'd been feeling and her nice doctor said "ok and she is absolutely correct, it is your Abdominal Aorta and it is enlarged, the normal size is about 2cms, yours is bigger than that, so I am sending you for an UltraSound, this is very curious as you're fit, slim (!!), don't smoke and your blood pressure and pulse are absolutely perfect, I wonder why this has happened?"

So, there we are.. again.. Valerie's hands picked something up and it is, of course, something that my mum had no symptoms /.reason to go to the medics for! Uncanny.. thank goodness Valerie had that funny feeling about my mum and got her in for that second appointment.

Busy day tomorrow, not for me. for her. She has to have several blood tests done, followed by another doctors' appointment, then she's off to learn how to use the mobile credit card charge system. Saturday and Sunday, weather / rain permitting, she'll garden at the allotment.

Some Redcurrant's should be ready to pick, she saw them about three weeks ago and they were thinking about ripening then. I wonder if there are any cherries ready! Ooh, we love a good cherry or two, that's if they actually make it home and don't get gobbled up by who know who on the way!

The second pair of scales have now gone back to Argos, one pair being delinquent.. but two pairs? So she's had a refund and bought another pair which should arrive on Wednesday at her box number.

What about our Peonies? Sigh.. we have had such gruesome weather that they may all have been blasted into the next field, it is sad to see them shredded by the savage rain and winds. At least the Roses come again throughout the season, that's the only bad / sad thing about Peonies, they don't keep on flowering. They're one-shot wonders!

But we have good news from one of the Phaelanopsis Orchids at home! For not only is she, little Miss Moth Orchid, growing another huge flower stem up from her base but she has two very long branches that have sprouted from an older flower stem in the past two weeks with lots and lots of buds on them! This is why you NEVER cut your old flower stems off!

Oh.. LookieLookie.. it is time for an early supper! So off we go to rattle those pots and pans.. turkey breast is for supper, I saw her take the meat out of the fridge an hour ago. There is also huge tortilla cooling in its' pan, half for tomorrow and half for her lunch on Saturday at the allotment.

PipPip.. I'm out-bound for YumYum HQ..

GeeGee Parrot.
June 30th, 2016.
PostScript: One third of our Summer has gone, it was a dire month, much wetter than Spring and not nearly as warm!

I WILL NOT ALLOW ADVERTISEMENTS TO BE POSTED AS 'COMMENTS' ON MY BLOG.

It has gone.. poof!

Someone with the 'name' of Sarah Coleman posted a long rambling comment on my last post. By 'her' grammatically incorrect usage of English, I am pretty sure that she was not English and as I'm not going to be responsible for any dodgy deals, who knows what she was trying to peddle to us, I have deleted it.

I will not allow scams of any sort to be inflicted upon you, my Dear Readers, or myself. I will only allow comments about the posts or contact from friends, followers or readers. I will not allow these people, who wish to rip us off to flog with their dodgy deals, space on my blog.

Gottit!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 29th, 2016.
PostScript: This is to refresh your memories about MYbirthday! It's on July 29th and I enjoy getting birthday cards and packages, just as much as you do, so don't forget. I'll be twelve. Roll on being a teen-ager! Ooh, that made her face go a bit pale! 

ATE EVERYTHING.. MEETS PAT.. JUMPS ON SCALES.. LOST 1/2lb!

I honestly thought that weigh-in was not happening today but Pat sent her a text message telling her something and off she went. Boots actually had her at a lb lighter, but until she gets to target, which in group is just a couple of lbs away, she'll bite the bullet and go by their scales.

Start of Wimbledon today, the weather was fine but doom and gloom are both arriving tomorrow.. sigh.. however, all is not lost, the new collection of couture fabrics have arrived and they're beautiful, as always.

She apparently caused the damage to grass trimmer herself.. grrrr? She didn't put enough oil in with the petrol.. boring! So she'll use this one until it dies and has decided to buy a new one from the friend of David, aka Master Machine Engineer and WW mender, apparently he stocks all the spare parts so will be able to mend it should it ever need repairing.

Oh Dear.. oh dear oh dear.. right from the start of us writing my blog, you've read about a wonderful and extremely nice friend of ours whom we call Wizard. She has just received a call from him, aka Rob, with not happy making news. He is undergoing emergency spinal surgery tomorrow because something has gone horribly wrong and something is doing something incredibly bad. Sigh..

As you can gather from that last sentence, she was so stunned she wasn't actually able to take in the full details. Oh dear, poor Wizard. No work for him for a long time they have said.. this is a man who rides and sails and skis. Luckily he also is an electronic Wizard and could earn a living sitting down but that ain't his style.

We will be praying for Rob tonight, in fact, she's already having more than a few words with God and some medically minded people she knows up there. For them to guide the surgeon to do his brilliant best work on Robs' back tomorrow.

Tomorrow she's off to the RA' Summer Exhibition with Tereza. Big treat, then they'll have lunch in Chinatown and cruise the supermarkets for scrummy oriental greens.. kai-lan is our favourite.

Much to do in the next few weeks, we have the date that the renovation work is starting, it's on July 25th. Now she has to get locks and mortices put into the doors of rooms and cupboards that she will be sealing up for the length of time we are not here.

Busy.. and we need to be gardening as there's lots to do but the two next days are a no-no, because of the Summer Exhibition tomorrow and because the forecast, for the next few days, is for heavy rain.. ugh.

The kitchen floor is waiting to be washed.. such an exciting life we live! We send you our regards and hope that you are all happy & healthy? We so wish Rob was.. "Dear God.. we beseech you to guide this surgeons hands and to save Robs spine.."

GeeGee Parrot.
June 27th, 2016.

AND WHILST HER BLOOD IS UP.. HERE'S ANOTHER THING THAT HAS ANNOYED HER FOR MANY A YEAR!rt

Restraint of Tongue & Pen. One should not write or say things after a 'good' dinner, the three of them agreed this upstairs at dinner tonight but this is too good an opportunity to miss! When and why did the four countries start calling themselves the United Kingdom instead of Great Britain?

Huh.. answer that if you would please! Because we are not a Kingdom, as we have, as our constitutional monarch, at this precise moment and they've been there for a significant length of time, much longer than ANY political party has been in power, a Queen..

Her title is Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth 11. As in second, not eleventh. So how and where did the name Kingdom come into play? As it should be Queendom.. bear with me. Now she is going to sleep before she starts blasting several people. I am sitting on her head in the hope that she calms down a bit, what a good thing she didn't have coffee as well!

For she certainly ate everything else! Including two icecreams, goaty cheese, strawberries, cherries, a monster helping of a dish of delicious portobello mushroom, onions and chicken livers cooked with herbs in olive oil, two slices of a delicious Spanish tortilla, a sliver of tomato but not, thank goodness, in this order. You can be sure she ain't going anywhere NEAR a scale tomorrow, that's for sure!

What she's going to do now, is to switch off the electronic gadgets as we are going to have a cuddle.. infact.. I might even sleep in her bed tonight or on her shoulder.. for she left the flat at midday and didn't return home until after 22.15hrs. That's a long time to be home alone for a small grey bird.. ah.. pathos.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 26th, 2016.

AND.. HOW THE UK VOTED!

Blimey.. Crikey! It was a bloodbath for the Remain Vote outside of London and Scotland! The capital, with its' mind fearful of losing the banking and other big businesses voted to remain with the EU. Scotland did as well but the rest of the country have had it with the EU & Brussels. Project Fear did a lot of damage to both parties.

She spoke with a lot of people yesterday and the farming and agricultural communities particularly had a LOT to say about the EU. One comment struck her as being SO true as she worked through the Foot & Mouth outbreak in the 60's on a very big agricultural estate. The Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries is, and has always been an, incredibly powerful ministry. Known generally as Min of Ag & Fish.

And they test for TB in cattle etc, etc. They are not idiots. In the 60's, they knew horses had to be exercised, so the ruling was that you could ride on roads but not across country, upon leaving your property, you sent through a disinfection sluice and upon re-entering your property you went through the same proceedure.

Very strict proceedures have always been in place to protect the UK herds of cattle, goats, sheep and the public health. But somehow, a lot of town and other under-informed folk think that it is only since we joined the EU that these ministry has existed. WRONG.

Another comment was made by a West Country farmer.. he said "Oh, thank God, now I can go back to cleaning my river of mud and silt.. *, that'll bring back the trout and I can mend the river banks which EU regulations have forbidden me to do. But I have always wondered how the Dutch manage to get around this strange regulation of NO canal / river cleaning or maintenance?"

*EU Agricultural policy encouraged agriculture on / of uplands.. where the land has filtered slowly for centuries and mostly been used as grazing. Upon destroying these natural water filters with their prescribed aggressive farming methods.. ploughing up of old grazing meadows, cutting down of trees, ripping out of hedgerows, it caused the run-off of water to speed up to a much too fast a pace. Water flows downwards..

Too late the EU realised what they had done and reversed their recommendations on upland farming.. it is / was this silt and mud that caused & created chaos in the rivers in Somerset.. and elsewhere.

As for EU countries somehow not wanting to deal with the UK now we are not in their club any longer.. hello? You think Spain etc will no longer want to sell its' fruit and vegetables to us. You think BMW is not going to want the UK market anylonger, the UK is apparently their biggest customer?

A lot of tourists yesterday were saying "well, we love coming here for holidays as we have the sunshine at home, so we come here for all the other stuff that your countries are so great at, PLUS, if the £ is weaker against the €, then we'll be able to come more often as it will be cheaper for us.

Our exports will be cheaper.. ok, it will be more expensive to go abroad but who spends their whole life abroad.. only ex-pats and their 'good life' is / was, supposedly cheaper for them there anyway, it is according to our dearest Fanny who lives in Spain.

And if those UK ex-pats have to pay for French / German / Italian.. wherever.. medical insurance, so be it. Quite fair.. as they're no longer paying into the UK system.

She started work when she was seventeen. For all of this time she has paid her NI stamp and when her weekly earnings reached a certain figure, she paid 12% of her salary every year until she retired.

What a lot of people do not realise is that their NI contributions go towards the NHS (National Health Service) and people who do not pay any NI are only eligible for basic NI benefits, do not contribute anything to the NHS, neither are they contributing towards a State Pension.

She has just been to have a couple of tests done at the GP surgery, whilst waiting to see the doctor, she talked to the receptionist who has just retired from being a Medical Secretary for thirty one years.

The following are the views of this highly articulate woman on the NHS.

"This extraordinary system is being crippled by people who have absolutely NO right to any NHS services. They do not hold: an NHS card, a EU Medical Card, nor do they carry any form of Medical Insurance. They're ALWAYS residents of a non-EU country, they get themselves into the UK, then pitch up at A&E usually in a London Hospital complaining "I don't feel very well."

Their illness is discovered, they are treated, sometimes several times and in between their surgical procedures, they are cared for in hospital, then they have may another proceedure and sometimes, they are sent to a nursing home after their immediate post-operative recuperation time, this person has not yet paid a penny and they then 'skip town' owing the NHS a fortune.

THIS is where the NHS has gone wrong, management's lost the plot, are paid huge amounts, much more so than the medical staff and together with the £ millions worth of medical bills run up by foreign patients, this is what is bankrupting the NHS."

Dear Readers.. If you don't think this is true. Do a bit of research and, IF you are a UK resident, ask YOUR GP about this appalling situation." And by the way, let me tell you, if you go as a foreigner to a French doctors surgery, they want your EU medical number OR your medical insurance details upfront and that's quite right, it is exactly HOW it should be.

We unfortunately have had Governments who don't ynderstand the bottom line..

Those EU and other nationals from around the world who are here LEGALLY and pay into our system hold a NI number. (A National Insurance number is like a Social Security number). The UK citizens working abroad got their job because they were deemed to be the better candidate for the job and they pay into that countries Taxation and Health systems and guess what? Surprise, surprise, they didn't get the job just because they were a member of the EU.

She had a job many years ago in France, before the UK was a member of the EU, she got it because
she was the right person for the job.. just like everyone today who is working 'abroad'.

Likewise in the future.. It won't matter what nationality you are. IF you have the right qualifications for a certain job and the company think you are the right person for the position.. you get the job.  This is how 'foreigners' have always worked abroad all over the world.

The foreign work force who come to the UK to pick our lavender, hops or other seasonal products will still be welcome. What leaving the EU means is that the gangs of gypsies who get into the UK by nature of the fact that they hold a EU passport but who 'maraud' the UK, do not work, do not intend to work but steal, beg in gangs, claim benefits and cause chaos will NOT be welcome.

NEWSFLASH..

Apparently a million or so people who voted to remain in the EU are saying "we were forced into this referendum and we want to change the rules. Excuse me? I bet they wouldn't have or be insisting this if they had won by the small margin that the Leave Party obtained! Think about that.. if you will.

'That the voting % has to be above 75% for the turn-out of voters and the winning % of votes between has to 60% and over."

Back to my blog..

We have always passed through some sort of Border Control upon entering Europe.. upon entering the EuroTunnel control at Dover, you have to show your passport to French Passport Control. Likewise the English Passort Control for entering EuroTunnel is in France.  If you enter Germany by air from England you show your passport at passport control in Germany, nothing will change in that sense.

But now.. perhaps.. our Government will NO LONGER treat our Commonwealth cousins like the citizens of some strange third world country, actually they are treated worse than that.

Trade deals.. huh.. President Obama said before the referendum that "That the UK leaving Europe might mean that the UK would find itself at the back of the queue on Tradedeals." Yesterday, upon learning the the UK had voted to leave the EU, he spoke about the 'Special Relationship' between the UK and the USA and Anglo-American Trade Deals..

Ahhhh.. Obviously someone gave him a different song sheet..

Now, I know that there are lots of things that she knows nothing about with regards to the finer financial details of the EU workings and budgets etc. All will start to be revealed.. but.. thank goodness, we won't have to put up with photos of David Cameron and his petulant face with that mouth that looks as if he's just bitten on a sour lemon for much longer.

The stock markets.. people bet on Stay.. they sold in panic.. greed makes people behave strangely.. if she still held stocks and shares, she'd be buying them, for surely you have heard the expression of Sterling or Dollar Averaging?

GeeGee Parrot.
June 25th, 2016.

BACK FROM ANNABEL'S..

Jiminy Cricket! As she walked down the steps into the famous night club in Berkeley Square, she realised that it was almost forty, yes, forty years to the month that she first went there.. grossly under age.. with a certain Mister Tim. And what a lot of happy times she has had in this place!

And what a very pleasant time she had tonight.. "Thank you Tereza". She was sensible and although in the past, she would have stayed up all night to see results come in, she realised with an important appointment at 09.00hrs, followed by another at 10.30hrs, staying up all night until 04.00hrs would not be the cleverest thing to do!

But you know she says she doesn't eat anything with flour butter or sugar in it.. well.. hello? What was this she ate with sheer delight? The starter of marinated raw tuna was sublime, followed by a chicken breast with spinach plus a few stolen courgette chips from Terezas' bowl.

Pudding.. ah well, that's where it all fell apart! The skinniest slivver of a delectable apricot tart with meringues.. ah well, three days on Boost will 'take care' of this delicious meal and you know what?

It was all scrumptious, she doesn't regret it! She won't be eating food like this again for a very long time and it wasn't just a pizza for which, actually, she wouldn't blow her regime. This was wonderful food, small amounts of such delicious tastes that she ate it all and felt NO sorrow at falling off plan.

When she last looked at the screens, the leave the EU party had 823 votes and the stay in the EU party had thousands more, but as she was leaving someone said that leave were in the lead! Who knows, we don't but the country will.. by the time we wake up this morning at 07.00hrs which is the time she's just set the alarm for!

So she caught a cab home and squeaked for me when she came through the door.. I was wondering what on earth was going on, it was nearly four hours past my bedtime! Anyway.. Make-up was taken off, her dress hung up, the undies went into the lingerie wash bag, wooden trees were put into her shoes, her evening bag emptied, I'm now safely in bed and so will she be in a few minutes.

"Good night folks".. who knows what this morning will bring, for the die has been cast as the people have voted.. we'll learn which way when we wake up.. but please God, don't send us another storm.. she's tired and wants to go to sleep.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 23rd, 2016.

A MONSTER OF A STORM BASHED & CRASHED OVER LONDON LAST NIGHT.

She cannot remember a storm like it! We sleep with a blind down and interlined curtains drawn but she was still woken up at 02.30hrs today by the lightening which lit up our bedroom! She padded off down to open the front door and was met by a sheet of water and then thunder and more lightening.

Grim night, it was very close and muggy and the storm rumbled around for several hours. Ugh.. she got very little sleep and we're lucky, we are safe in the base of the house, what it must have been like where les filles are up at the top! Well, she knows, Tereza said it was really scary!

Voting done, hair coloured and cut, not at L'Oreal but by Anita and to exactly the same colour number and method. Razor sharp cut! Everything ready.. she'll have to brush her hair 'cos I was / am lpathetic and whinged about her being in bed having a nap-pet and me not being allowed to sit on her head, you can tell I'm spoilt.. as if you didn't already know!

So, there we are folks.. flooding and some trouble at a couple of the votung ploos.. with people saying they hadn't been regustered to vote. Why hadn't they checked? Stupid..

Hey.. finally America has woken up to their gun problem! There's a sit-in in progress and a good thing too. She was appalled by the Senates vote NOT to change the gun law.. more on this tomorrow. Now we are turning the light out and having a doze before she has to be ready for collection at 20.45hrs.

PipPip.. we'll know the result of the referendum tomorrow evening, I guess.. are we staying with Europe or leaving? Who knows, we don't.. YET.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 23rd, 2016. 

HOHOHO.. de cat is amongst de pigeons!

Because' armed with the information she gave him this morning - bless his heart, he came down into reception and they talked through it all for half an hour - he sent a very carefully worded letter to her landlord and the Company Secretary of the limited company who are the Freeholders.

And basically, he told them.. their nasty little secret had been uncovered and that he and the council were alarmed that their surveyor had given them, the council, 'incorrect information on the ownership of the house'.

Yubba-Dubba-Doo!

Gloves on.. Seconds out of the ring, that's fighting talk ladies and gentlemen.. now they know we know that they were up to naughty tricks and it was very silly of them to be stupid because, of course, now, the council are on high alert and putting all manner of legal stuff into place to protect her.

Anyway, that was her excitement for the day, she's tired, living on your nerves ain't good for anyone and when it concerns your home and a landlord whose acknowledged to be extremely difficult and economical with the truth - as written in an email to the Director of RB of K&C in July 2006 by the head of Environmental Health - it means you don't fully relax until after the fat lady has sung.

So.. what else is going on? Not a lot.. she's out on the town tomorrow night, she'll put me to bed and then she slipping into a dress, no less, and going out! Voting at 09.30hrs, hair appointment with Anita at 11.00hrs. Library, home, eat lunch, press dress, steam wrap, shine shoes and bag, rest for a bit (she is old, one forgets this), bathe, dress, do make up (!!) kiss Beaky and leave house at 20.45hrs.

That's your lot tonight.. we're already in bed, we have had pork loin chops for supper with salad and mushroom, I had smelly hummus as well, delicious. We had the most delicious curd filled omelette for this morning, great way to break that evil 12 hour fast, I can tell you! It is so scrummy.

Good night one and all.. have fun, I hope that you're having a more summery Summer than we are? It ain't up to scratch, that's for sure!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 22nd, 2016.

LIAR LIAR.. PANTS ON FIRE!

Well, his pants won't burst into flames but his career might just hit skid row! The young surveyor, sent by the 'so-called' Freeholders, lied to a very senior Council Officer from the Town Hall and her for an hour and a half today.. nice one Charlie!

VeryVery silly to lie to any Council Official, especially those who have all the power to condemn a property, should they so wish.

She can't quite say what it was that made her smell a rat, a very large rat indeed, but something did, so she called BUB and asked him to work magic upon his computer and GUESS what he found?

Well, that first of all, the young surveyor HAD been lying, that the Freehold is actually held by a limited company, NOT Wellcome Trust and the company has five shares.. and NOW we know who owns what!

She telephoned the man from the Town Hall and said "He was lying about the freeholder, it isn't Wellcome", there was this stunned silence at the other end of the line and he very cautiously replied "How do you know, are you absolutely sure? Because if so, he is in BIG trouble", her response was "I am looking at the Title Deeds of the property, are they good enough evidence for you?"

Poor man.. he has obviously never come across such a situation like this before and asked her "What made you think of getting them or finding them", she replied "I started to get suspicious and then I remembered that the property manager of Wellcome would have been in contact with me, like they were ten years ago when they WERE the freeholders but they haven't been and two and two have made four, I'll bring the papers up to you at the Town Hall tomorrow, one share out of the five belongs to a company registered in Panama, and another share is registered to a company registered in Jersey"

So that's where she's headed tomorrow morning. It has been a very tiring day, the two men were here separately and together when their visits overlapped for a total of three hours whilst they talked and photographed everything and stuck damp measures into walls and floors etc, etc.

She's wiped out.. and as it's way past our bed time.. shock horror.. that's where we are going, to bed, to sleep.. asap. "Night Night to you all.." A Birthday package is safely in the post for young Freddie M.. and another package is in the post for the not quite so young.. two years older Poppy M..

Missions all accomplished today.. Library tomorrow for new books.. after she's taken this very damning and incredibly 'revealing' evidence in the form of Title Deeds and company registration paperwork to the Town Hall up on Hornton Street..

GeeGee Parrot.
June 21st, 2016.
PostScript: The longest day of the year.. oi vey and we haven't even had Summer yet!

NOW.. HERE'S A CURIOUS THING. BOOTS ELECTRONIC SCALES HAD HER @ ..

Greetings from deepest Knightsbridge.. where it isn't pouring with rain! This makes a change, to put it politely! Yesterday, we awoke to a deluge! It was gruesome, she reached for her waterproof jacket and trousers, rubber boots and went off to meet Pat before weigh-in as snug as a bug in a rug and totally dry!

She was asked by FOUR separate people "Please, where did you find those waterproofs?" And not one person looked askance! Everyone looked envious, as they stood getting drenched by the torrential downpour which the wind was bringing in by the bathload.

She popped quickly into Boots, stripped down normal clothes.. 9stone 4lbs. 130lbs. Pulled her clothes and boots back on, took the weighing ticket and caught the 14 bus to Fulham.

She met Pat in the coffee bar, stripped off and was a dry as a bone! Whereupon, a tall, VERY Hunka-the-Munka man said "now, that's an unusual sight in London, where did you get that poachers suit from?"

Much laughter was laughed by lots of people! So another person is now heading for her favourite shop saying "The Blonde sent me / us".

Pat and she had a wonderful hour and a half! She is an a-dor-a-bubble woman and oh, goodness me, they laughed! It's VERY good to have a friend of a similar age who has worked hard - Pat ran a GP practice in Fulham - and shares views on various things. Especially.. the value of friendship.

Then they sauntered off up to weigh-in.. WOW! So few people! Wow.. no one happy! Why? Then it was her turn.. HUH.. and Pat was HUH too! Why was she huh? Well.. she knows she's lost weight.. Valerie, whom she saw on Saturday, remarked on how it was easier to work on her knee and her home scales were exactly the same as Boots BUT weigh-in had her at 9stone 9 & 1/2lbs

A difference of 5 & 1/2lbs! And an increase of 1lb from last week! Pat was up two lbs, Charlotte was up three lbs.. she has come to the end of her 12 week payment plan and having thought about it, is giving weigh-in a break for a bit.

She and Pat spoke about it with Charlotte and she said "That's it for me kids, something is 'off' with those scales and we're not getting any support at the moment, .... is mentally in a strange place having got pregnant, I'll do weigh-in at Boots and meet you girls for a coffee before group".

And with that she kissed and hugged these two lovely women and shot off to Poundland to get lots of those storage bags for clothes etc, the ones you attach a vacuum to. Brilliant, they had just the right size she wanted, into the basket they went and she had a chat with the charming girl on check-out and whizzed home.

And today.. drum roll.. the man from the council is coming with his magic machines to inspect and view. So we are shaking our legs and wings and starting our day a littler earlier than normal. We'll report later, she's has to plunder Bartek for more Turkey and Chicken and IshPol! Oooh, the IshPol is SO delicious as the Summer Cabbage are fabulous and so too is the fresh Dill, very slurpy indeed! And change books at the Library.

PipPip.. I see a ray of sunlight.. happy days folks, we sure hope it ain't going to rain today, yesterday we certainly had more than our 'fair' share.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 21st, 2016.
PostScript: The longest day of the year! 

She's been leaving early.. getting home late.. such has been my lot recently

She's been to Romford twice and that's not a quick trip, to the surgery and then onto plunder Borough Market for gifts.. meanwhile, I've been home alone with a mouse and LBC radio. No time for the garden, it has been 'pretty' wet though, to say the least, she's complained of soggy feet.. more than once!

The man from the local Town Hall department is coming to measure for damp, for they, the department, are NOT pleased to know that the exterior repairs have not been done yet, although they were ordered to be done last November by the head managing agents of the Welcome Trust Foundation Estate.

OI VEY.. sparks are surely going to fly, that's for sure!

I am afraid that I have nothing of any great importance or scandalous gossip to tell you, she's meeting Pat tomorrow before weigh-in at 11.30am for coffee in Fulham and I'll report back with her weight and she says she's going to give us the lubbly-jubbly recipe that she tried two weekends ago.

She has a package that she must post tomorrow to Faith for Freddie, he'll be eight on July 4th, he and his two sisters, Poppy and Charlotte, are growing upwards as fast as les petites who live upstairs, the upstairs girls are off somewhere doing Duke of Edinburgh Award stuff this week.

She's had some gruesome nights of not sleeping.. ugh. So she bought half a kilo of turkey meat on Saturday, she's doesn't care if it's an old wives tale or not, it DOES help her get to sleep and stay that way.. asleep. L.Tryptophan and Seratonin being good guys. That and a big glass of goaty milk, for lots of calcium!

I LURVE that finely sliced Turkey meat and she'd rolled a slice up which I found on my plate when she zoomed out at some ungodly hour this morning! She only came back with a bit of goaty milk, some cheese and ONE Library book! Heaven knows what she'd been up to all day long for seven hours, but it wasn't playing the fool with me, that's for sure!

But it's almost 9.00pm and we're going to bed early, she's got to get paperwork organised for the Town Hall man whose coming on Tuesday, she has everything that's of vital importance but she has to put stickers on various papers to indicate which paper refers to which part of the flat.

She's 100% sure that the cause of the BIG trouble, which everyone is trying hard to avoid dealing with, is the mains water pipe into the house.. it goes up and over her bathroom window inside into tanking, the tanking had to be replaced but it, of course, did not stop the leakage which is, she sure, coming from this pipe.. it is the original pipe and it was put in in 1889, so it's old!

Anyway.. the exterior and the interior wall directly underneath and around this pipe are showing signs of severe damage being caused by damp. They don't want to 'deal' with it because it will be one hell of a job, in work terms and the cost of the work.

PLUS it involves completely stripping out our bathroom.. back to the bare bricks and taking out the window, over which this old pipe goes, then seeing how far into the house but still in our flat, the damage on this big pipe goes.. AND, it will affect everyone in the house above us with the loss of their water supply. Not us, we are on a different supply.

So that's all I have to impart in the form of news.. pretty dull, I'm afraid.. but hey, it didn't rain today.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 19th, 2016.

THE KNIFE MURDER IN FRANCE THAT NO ONE IS TALKING OR WRITING ABOUT.

A senior French policeman and his wife, a civil servant at the Interior Ministry, were stabbed to death at their home in Magnanville 30 miles north-west of Paris on Monday night, their killer a known terrorist called Larossi Abballa.

He filmed the killings and streamed the video plus photographs of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife Jessica live onto Facebook and in one section, he said on camera.. "I still don't know what I'm going to do with him."

'Him', Dear Readers, was the couple's three year old boy who witnessed the slaughter of his parents.  There is nothing to be found about this on any of the front pages of any papers this morning, it was picked up by the Evening Standard yesterday and reported in full by Peter Allen in Paris and Justin. Davenport.

Luckily / unluckily the child was unharmed.. but the psychological damage will be so severe, which is why I wonder if it would not have been better if they had all gone together.. for can you even begin to imagine the thoughts and visions inside that are inside that poor little boys head?

The French police shot the killer. And papers are 'wittering' about how the Duchess of Cambridge wore a ten year old coat to plant a tree somewhere in Northern Iteland. OI VEY.

She's off to do damage to those pesky weeds and, finally, we have some sunshine. She got very wet yesterday, it was entirely her own fault, you know she listens to the radio so she had heard the weather forecast, you know she has a full set of water proofs, did she wear them or even take an umbrella with her when she went to Hammersmith?

No, so she came home veryvery wet indeed but with both missions accomplished and Argos in King Street are probably still rocking with laughter! Ooh yes, my mum can be relied upon to cause chaos and hysteria even in a catalogue shop!

Don't worry, I'll tell the tale later.. got to go now.. an egg's got my name on it.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 15th, 2016.
PostScript: Correction.. The New York Times is carrying a full length article on this atrocity.  

TWO LBS GONE.. HOPEFULLY NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN!

Well, I was right and I was wrong last week, I gave her weight as 9stone 10lbs. I should have said 9stone 10 & 1/2lbs. She has lost 2lbs this last so she's back down to 9stone 8 & 1/2lbs.. as if it were important to you guys!

Flipping miracle I call it! She hoovered up all the goaty cheese samples, ate that divine thing that wasn't chocolate, thank goodness she has NO idea who makes it, otherwise there would be a beaten trail from our home to their shop!

Especially as yesterday, she didn't drink any water when she was working, forgot her lunch, came back very late and, didn't eat her snacks. SNACKS! Yes, she has these little dainty snacks every so often to keep the wolf from the door as it were, the favourite nightly snack is 30g of almonds or wanuts, tonight it's almonds with a tub of homemade lemon jelly.. Jelly! I ask you? Is she a grown-up or what?

But the inches are falling off her and the shoes that she bought last week in Hammersmith, have to go back as they're too big! Thank goodness the receipt is still in the bag. Also, the scales have to go back to Argos as they're not working correctly.. boring.

She'll do this tomorrow morning after going to the audio dept at the hospital, her left hearing aid has stopped working. So hospital, followed by shoe shop, Argos, then allotments.. in the rain.

It tipped it down with hard rain today, she's thrilled for the fruit but sad for her gloriously tall peonies, the ones in bloom have been decimated by the horrendous rain we've had this last week. And the roses aren't much happier either!

Everything looks a bit too lush and green! And as for those evil briars, the grass and the nettles which grow a mile a minute in front of her eyes.. grrr! Happily, so does the fruit! YUM! Those figgies are going to be spectacular, IF, we ever get some sunshine!

But that's for tomorrow folks.. now it is almost time for our bed time and we haven't had a kiss and a cuddle yet.. so adieu Dear Reader, adieu.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 13th, 2016.

POOR QUEENIE.. IT RAINED ALL HER OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY WEEK-END.

She went to Chiswick Farmer's Market yesterday to deliver IshPol and other things to Debbie. And oh boy, it was wet. She had multiple layers of clothing on because, after all she is English and knows the weather can and sometimes does cheer up, and it did later on for about two hours.

During which time she managed to plant her beans out. The last frost date has been and gone and she split the eighteen plants amongst three beds as with all the rain, Mister Slimy Slug is bound to be about and he LOVES young bean plants.

However, there was the big gazebo keeping them dry so they sat on their two yellow sofas, aka the big chiller boxes, and spoke of their past weeks activities. Much work has done on the farm with harvesting and baling and making of cheese.. yes folk, Shaggy and Kelly are back in stock!

Coffee was bought from the coffee stall along with a slice of the most chocolately of chocolates! But it wasn't! It was free of everything and made up out of dates and figs and NO flour. It was incredible. Dark, strong and very rich.. NO, she is not going to write that old joke, besides, he's been dead for several years now.

Mama spoke of her jaunt to Epsom and other stuff. I am afraid that this jaunt is going to kept private, she has spoken to Debbie and Bruce about it because they were, in a way, involved.

Anyway, today is Monday and what does this signify in our household? WEIGH-IN! I wonder if the chocolate, which wasn't, will show up on the scale?

Oh, but I will tell you something that happened to her yesterday at the market. She was standing there when a tall man with a familiar face came up and started chatting, his name she could not remember, then he said "I will be making your biscuits this week as Debbie has made Kelly, her hard cheese" and she remembered who he was!

About two years ago, she had made tiny, one bit sized cheese and herb biscuits out of spelt flour, rosemary and Kelly cheese, Mark, the baker next to Ellie's Dairy at Parson's Green Farmer's Market tasted a couple and had begged her for the recipe. He no longer does this market.

They FLY off his stall whenever he makes them but they only work really well with this hard Goat cheese, it is fabulous, and so she's happy because he can only get the cheese from Debbie because it is HER cheese, she makes it.

And she had the enviable task of eating the samples which were left at the end of market! Slurp.

Now it is past 11.30am and we had better shake a leg, she has to weigh-in, then go onto the work on allotments clearing briar rubbish off the plot and take it to the big dump area. Oh dear, it may be quite warm at about mid twenty degrees but she is fed up of being wet and thanks her lucky stars that she has these incredible waterproofs.

Yes, they may make you a bit warm but they're light and keep you absolutely dry, she's so grateful to that workman up in Streatham who told her about where the road crews get their reflective and waterproof clothing, for it is amazing!

PipPip folks.. sorry we haven't posted for so long.. but we will be back and she has an action packed week this week!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 13th, 2016.

QUACK QUACK.. HER RIGHT FOOT LOOKS LIKE A DUCKS!

The most bizarre thing has happened! She went to weigh-in wearing a comfortable pair of shoes with no backs. Came home.. took shoes off.. pottered about, this was Monday. Tuesday she waited for the post and stayed at home, with no shoes on, because of the torrential rain storms.

At about 8.00pm last night, she noticed her smallest right toe was sore, looked at it, UGH! Red and swollen! Why! Nothing had happened to it.. how strange! We went to bed, she leapt in the air in pain with the weight of bed clothes on sore toe.

It was more swollen and felt as if she had forced it up and over the next toe in some crazy fashion, she certainly hadn't done. It was SORE. So off she went looking for the old bag of peas which live in frosty white cupboard especially for occasions such as this. Hmmm.. but how to make them stay around her toe?

They didn't work, so she put the package back into frosty and found a jelly filled plastic top of a picnic box and hunted for a huge pair of medical socks with grippers that she's had for years, she stuffed the frozen lid into one of them and put her foot in on top of it.

It was weird walking around with a big flappy duck foot. But.. BINGO.. one iced and cold toe! However, she had to lie in the same position all night long.. Grimsville folks!

Toe was slightly less painful this morning but it was still swollen and sore. She waited for the Town Halls' package this morning, it came at 1.00pm, she donned a rain coat, put on her Canadian leather lace up boots, in which poor toe was supported in the right position, took an umbrella, whistled up WW mark 2 and limped off up to the Kings' Road to catch a bus to Lidl at Clapham Junction.

People looked at her wearing a raincoat (it was at least 25 degrees and sunny) in a strange way but three minutes after leaving Clapham Junction, the sky opened and down came torrential rain.. just as the nice woman on LBC has said it would!

A smiley man in a smart linen suit looked at her and said "I see you listened to the weather forecast which I forgot to do when I left the office" she smiled and nodded, just as a big storm erupted with bangs of thunder and lightening crashed and flashed its' way across the city.

She always listens to the forecast, particularly when Northern France experiences grim and very wet weather, for it was bound to get here within a few days and this lot, is bang on schedule.

But 'what and why' caused poor small toe to be bright pink, sore & swollen? Who knows.. do you?

GeeGee Parrot.
June 8th, 2016.

I PORKY-PIED, IT WAS A GAIN OF 2lbs.

Phew.. I got the finger wagging trick when she saw what I said last night.. she's back to 136lbs aka 9stone 10lbs. So she's cutting out certain foods and upping the ones she loves.

She's having to stay at home, the Environmental Health Dept are sending her a hard copy of her file but they couldn't give a time.. before 1pm was all they could say. So the contents of her dry store cupboard are being checked over and a lot is going out of the door and being given away.

"ByeBye CousCous and Pasta" we love you but you sure do horrid things to her digestive tract. It has been a long process, this process of elimination and finding out what her gut like and what it doesn't.

You stop eating whatever you're suspicious of, wait a while, reintroduce them and wait to see what happens. She did it with potatoes and got away with a couple and then a few more but the next day.. ZAP KAPOW! Evil Arthur Arthritis roared back into her right hand finger joints!

And Sweet Potatoes 'blow' her up! She had some on Sunday morning in that delicious homemade Rosti but within a few hours, her tumtum was bloated, she was 'windy', to put it politely and 2lbs heavier. So it's "BYEBYE TATTIES" and, of course, this includes her most favourite, the unusual looking Pink Firs and those perfect girls with which to make salads.. aka Charlottes.. Sigh.

A little later..

Never mind.. oh boy, did she get lucky today! As the letter had not arrived by 1.00pm, she reread the email from Environmental Health and realised that the letter only went out today via Registered Post. So she got dressed and it was whilst she was doing this that she heard a curious noise, being nosy, she opened the front door to be met by a solid wall of water!

Good grief! Talk of torrential rain! She called Leigh, who lives near to the allotments and she duly reported that, no, it wasn't raining there but that the sky looked very hard. It stopped here.. for a while but then CRASH BANG WALLOP! An almighty storm broke over our heads and down came the rain again.

South London has been badly hit with houses and telephones poles hit by lightening and flash floods. Outside the train station at Wallington, people had to be rescued from their cars as the water came whooshing down so quickly, with over six and a half feet of water falling within an hour!

BLIMEY O'REILLY!

If she had read the email correctly the first time, she would have been miles from home on the hunt for her beloved Turkish tea up in North East London. So she stayed home, there's always something to do if you have to stay home, for yes, it really was raining that hard. A load of washing went on, with clothes that she is giving away.

At this rate her wardrobe will be down to clothes that she had in the mid 90's through to about 2008. That's ok, but even those skirts and trousers are a bit too loose in the waist and hip. She will settle at her weight and then spend a bit of money having them professionally taken in.

No sign of our new neighbour upstairs but she and her family sure are noisy! They allow the big front door of the main house to slam shut and it's a LOUD slam! God help them if they do it when the owner of Flat 1 is here, which is right by the front door,  she'll be out of her front door in a flash!

Nothing extremely dramatic or exciting to report.. life is tranquil.. there are some recipes that she'll share with you soon. She's just a bit wary of reading her cookery books at the moment, her eyes get drawn to things that she's a tad sensitive about..

Hey Ho.. perhaps she'll put me on the scales as well? Except that I broke our Parrot friendly scales which I beaked them off the top of chilly white larder. The new ones she has bought are not the same style and I don't like standing on metal plates. I guess I weigh about 400g, that's a little light for me but as I don't have my full compliment of clothes on, I'm bound to be a bit under weight.

She, in the meantime, does not have this excuse, weigh-in is done wearing as few clothes as decently possible. A lot can happen in a week.. we'll all be watching this space next Monday, that's for sure.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 7th, 2016.   

I BEAR SAD NEWS, GAIN IN WEIGHT! PESKY SCALES..

She went to weigh-in and was told she'd gained 2.5lbs.. and she's so miffed because she knows why that she is not going to tell me the recipe of what she ate with which she gained that weight! Hello, are you following this? It was a Rosti, I had some of it and it truly was a very splendid thing.

So, she's got this little slim face, the weight went on obviously somewhere else and it is bound to come off I am sure, but to make sure it does, she set off hot footed to our lubbly-jubbly butcher in search of very lean beef, for we have an old fashioned mincer, the type you clamp to a table.

Lean beef, onion, garlic, fresh herbs and spices.. yes, they all indicate a proper beef burger, to be cooked on her old George Foreman grill, which was dug out from its' hiding place and given a wash and a dust. 

That's for tomorrow, todays' main meal was a Sea Bream cooked on the grill, it is a delicious fish. On a plate of lettuce and cucumber with crunchy celery as a treat afterwards. 

The pesky scales are hers here at home.. she got onto them this morning and THEY told her she was 9stone 6lbs.. so to be told later at group that she was actually 4lbs heavier was a bit of a slap in the belly with a wet fish, to say the least! 

Ah well.. such is life. But I don't fancy being those naughty bathroom scales, their days might well be numbered because they have actually just had a new battery put into them so they should not be telling big fat porky-pies, should they?

That's your lot today.. she's got some paper work to do and it is almost my bed time.. where does time go?

GeeGee Parrot.

June 6th, 2016.

PESKY WOMAN!

She spent most of last week out and about and woke me up early on Friday and Saturday, like really early, so when I saw today was going to be a fine day, I thought 'oh good, she'll go to the allotment and leave me in peace to have a doze'..

Huh.. no, she didn't get dressed into street clothes, she put on comfy-stay-at-home-clothes and proceeded to strip down YumYum HQ to wash and tidy everything. Then it was the turn of bathroom and finally, bedroom. Such too'ing and fro'ing went on, I got tired and retreated to top of chilly white larder.. aka fridge.. and played at destroyer of all things cardboardy.

I found the walls are lined with plyboard, very crunchy is plyboard! Unfortunately, she caught me red-Beaked nibbling this whilst she was talking to BUB, she wasn't happy to discover this new habit of mine. Such is life.. I got the 'finger being waved in front of Beaky treatment'.

Weigh-in tomorrow, I have no idea if she's lost any lbs, however, she is visibly slimmer and a pair of Bergdorf Goodman trousers in an American size 4 are now much too loose around the hips, she has no hips! Even at her fattest her hips were never large, they're now non-existent.

She tried on other American trousers, which all fitted in the waist, some are even loose but they're all are too big in the hip area. She'll take to them to a tailor as their waistbands need to come off to allow them to be altered properly.

So tomorrow, it's library, weigh-in and back home to finish sorting through clothes, she has things that just don't work for her any longer, they make her look like orphan Annie as they're much too big for her.

Rice and peas with smoked mackerel was her lunch and supper was a tub of IshPol.. very slurpy stuff IshPol, she'll be hunting in Bartek for fresh beetroot, a red cabbage, a horseradish root and fresh ginger on Tuesday for she was given a small tub of red cabbage sauerkraut with beetroot and a small amount of fresh ginger root. It was VERY good and will be a cinch to make with a mandolin. She will also grate raw beetroots and horseradish root together, that's a great combination! Tasty with pork or beef.

But now, she can hardly stop yawning, it's her own fault, she got up at 05.15am this morning! Daft woman, I'm very glad she didn't even think of asking me if I wanted to get up. Beaky would have given her 'what-for' if she had been silly enough to do that!

But it is past nine of the evening clock and I am quite ready to go to sleep, she'll doubtless wake us up with a mug of LapySang at some unholy hour tomorrow, so I had better go shut-eye.

Chirps to you all.. especially to BUB.. he knows why.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 5th, 2016.

THIS BUTTERFLY WON'T FLOAT NO MORE..

His credo was to "Float like a Butterfly..sting like a Bee".

It has been announced by his family that after a brief struggle with a respiratory problem, for which he had recently been admitted into hospital, Mohammed Ali, who had had Parkinsons Disease for thirty two years, has died aged 74.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 4th, 2016.      

June 3rd, 2016.. Freezing cold with a north-easterly wind.

Oh, when is it going to be like Summer should be! My clothes are coming back and so I could go and annoy the referee by blowing 'his' whistle.. but it's so chilly-billy, far too cold for a girl from Central Africa to sit out in the open in her cage, even if she was going to play the fool.

WW is much sicker than we thought, when his legs fell off, they ripped his bottom in half! So not only does he have no legs, his bum is a'draggin on the ground.. dear, oh dear. And trimmer is a bit sicker than we thought.. his bearings are shot!

David, Master Surgeon of all electronic, mechanical and WWs who are unwell, has sent his diagnosis in, trimmer won't be home for a while but that's ok, it is so cold we doubt if anything will grow out at the allotments, certainly the asparagus has stopped! But he'll be able to mend old WW as the same thing happened to WW Mark 2 and now, he is better and stronger than before.

Today she had an appointment at 10.30am, after which she had her hair cut, tis now very short! Next to the Library to get books for the weekend, a quick walk took her up the Kings' Road to collect her months' supply of eye medicine. Up further to the surgery to request a six month supply of the prescriptions for the pharmacy.

Home at a fast pace, cold wind gets colder by the second when you are hungry. Out all day tomorrow she's dug out her food thermos and washed that and got her clothes ready for tomorrows' early start.. at 07.30 (blimey)!

Pork and beans with rice and peas plus a thermos of hot coffee will go with her, the food is already cooked, she'll heat it up just before she leaves the house. Cold rain proof clothing ready in her basket, all she has to do is wake up and roll out of bed.

She 'rolled' out of bed this morning at a dreadful hour and asked me if I wanted to get up, "GET UP?" I growled, "it's only 06.00 hours, get away with you, you daft wench, let me go back to sleep".

But.. according to those that know.. Sunday is going to be hot and sunny! She'll probably sleep most of it, I don't mind, for I like nothing better than dozing on her head whilst she dozing in her bed. it's very cosy.

And talking about cosy, we're off to YumYum HQ, there's a piece of salmon tail covered in dill and black pepper which has been sitting there for a few hours coming up to room temperature. It will go into our biggest pan, with no oil just garlic rubbed on the pan and over a medium heat, skin down for about six minutes, then flipped for two more.

Yum, I love fish like this, very good for you is Mr. Oily Fish, it certainly has helped my feathers, that's for sure, they're very glossy and my legs are no longer featherless, you'll be pleased to know. So we are off so she can perform culinary tricks in the smallest room in our home.. our bathroom is MUCH bigger!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 3rd, 2016.

Jiminy Cricket.. it is extremely cold. Will our last Frost Date be pushed back this year? It is June 9th.. only another week to go.

Ugh.. she's so glad she hadn't planted out anymore lettuce, the last lot didn't even make it through a week before Jack Frost sent them to their grave but she doesn't feel too sorry for the rude NEW plot holder who told her and Antonio that, just because they had had their plots for a few years (she had to smile), they didn't know everything about tomatoes.

So she just smiled like a Metal Tiger and said "you are probably right but .. oh well, now Antonio, what were you going to tell me about xyz" and they moved away. Antonio smiled like a Sicilian Fox (which he is) and said quietly "Remind me, when IS our last frost date" and they were both suddenly overcome with a mild form of hysteria.

That, Dear Readers, was last week which was before the temperature plumeted, the rain came and Evil East Wind blew into town, it is now colder that it was last Christmas. Grim, to say the least but at least London is not flooded like Paris, nor do we have a General Strike with our aviation pilots due to go out tomorrow. OI VEY!

WW is sick.. he's very, very sick. He has to go to see David The Mender of all things Electronic or Wicker. She took him out to Streatham to get a few things and they were bouncing along quite happily but when she stopped at the bus stop, he fell over onto his basket! Luckily he had nothing in basket, she picked him up, turned him upside down and found his legs are missing!

Obviously the long trip home carrying the weight of 'Genny' Generator was just too much yesterday and somewhere along the way home, they gave up the ghost, jumped ship and fell off. Now both WW and WW Mark 2 will have to come with her on Saturday to the Farmers' Market in Bute Street. Debbie is bringing grass trimmer back to, she'll collect the trimmer in WW Mark 2 and leave old WW with Debbie to take home to David.

She won't be dragging Genny backwards and forwards to the allotments but it is good to know that she can fit in to WW when she wants to bring her home, she'll drain the oil and petrol and put her away until Springtime.

We have had a happy day.. salmon for supper preceeded by a slice from a FRESH loaf of rye and sunflower bread.. slurp yum. I am amazed that I get it all these days, before she used to 'nibble' bits of my slices, now I get a whole slice at a time. This eating nothing made with : Butter, Flour or Sugar seems to be sticking. It has now been in practise since May 20th, that's two weeks tomorrow.

She's going to be with real-live Goaty folk on her birthday, July 7th, at the Techy Park open day and Debbie said "BIRTHDAY CAKE" in a very firm voice, so she thinks she'll make and take a big cheesecake, that would be delicious and at the end of the day, she'll send the rest down to the crew in Kent 'cos she knows both David and Joe LOVE cheesecake, huh, who doesn't like cheesecake?

That'll be 48 days of not eating anything made with : Butter, Flour and or Sugar.. she'll be a wee bit smaller so a slivver of cheesecake will do no harm.. as long as the rest of it goes with Debbie!

My bewitching hour has arrived.. yes, it is past 10.00pm. So we both off to bed, she has a day full of appointments and HAS to pick up the monthly supply of her eye medications from Andrews the nice Chemists in Sloane Street, so we have an early start.

Goodnight to you all.. stay snug.. very cold. 

GeeGee Parrot.

June 2nd, 2016.

PostScript: Lesley's (in NYC) birthday today.. "Happy Birthday LuLu".

SHE FOUND A GENNY!

I might as well give up and move to the allotment folks! For there won't be any sight or sign of her in deepest Knightsbridge now. For today she found and bought a 4 stroke petrol generator which will give her 240 voltage power to 'play' with on the plot!

And it fits neatly into WW. Poor old WW.. another heavy thing for him to carry.

Power tools, powering up little fridge when she's there all day and wants to chill food, make ice for friends (yes, she's got an ice maker, doesn't everyone have one of these in their garden shed?) And, of course, very handy for recharging batteries of powered tools. Ah well, it keeps her out of trouble and away from strange folk, I guess!

Her session with Valerie was sublime.. left kidney not working as well as it should, she picked up that mum has been drinking iced water.. not good for the system as the kidneys don't function as well. "You've been carrying heavy things just with one arm, try and remember to swap the load about and use the left arm as well".. right on the button, mum always picks up WW in her right hand and boy, oh boy, she's been schlepping some 'pretty' heavy loads.

But the swelling in pancreas etc has competely gone.. and her right achilles tendon has lengthened and sorted itself out, there is some residue of puffiness behind her right knee, poor old polio afflicted dodgy knee, Valerie gave her a mix with which to massage the soft tissue there twice a day, towards the heart. Body massage should always be done towards the heart, including the neck from jawline which must come down, facial massage must always go upwards and outwards towards the hair line.

She was early for her appointment as planned, what was not planned, was the monstrous deluge of rain that greeted her when she got off the train at Romford. Ha! Plan B. Turn right out of the station and go to the 'greasy spoon' cafe where she took Angela and where they had sat and talked for so many hours. Her packed lunch was relegated to being supper.

Two eggs sunny side up, mushrooms, sausages and bacon with black coffee.. what could be better? Not greasy at all, immaculate loo, charming staff who always greet her and say "Going to see Val?"

Then she made a trip into Samms 99p Store, they always have an excellent selection of hand tools and she wanted two new padlocks, something to do with Little Tool Shed, when she can get to it! They also do power drill attachments that usually cost a fortune but you only find these IF you're very lucky! Which she was, they must have just had a delivery. Because 'proper' builders snap them up as soon as they come into stock! Likewise their voltage testers.

It was whilst she was in Sams 99 store that she overheard someone talking about a generator he had bought last week, so she asked him where he had found it.. he told her "Lidl, and I know they've got a couple left 'cos my mate bought one this morning".. zoom, she left the basket with the check-out girl and said "I'll be back" and hot footed it to Lidl!

And there, sure enough, were three generators! She read all the blurb on the box, it's exactly what she's been looking for, holding her breath, she picked up the box. OH, NOT TOO HEAVY. Now you wouldn't want to have to carry it home but she wouldn't have to, would she? For standing right beside her.. was poor old WW.

And.. it wasn't silly money! And it's got a 3 year guarantee! And, it's 4 stroke, so she bought it, took out the fig trees in their bag, put the generator into WW and took it to the greasy spoon cafe, where she asked if she could leave it with them, then back to Sams 99 store to pay for those items, then off to Valerie with, of course, the two fig trees.

Hello.. are you still with me? I must admit even I was a bit worn out by all the activity that had gone on and it wasn't even 1.30pm yet!

After leaving Valerie, she trotted at a fast pace back to the cafe, had a cup of coffee, thanked them, paid, collected the generator and started the journey home. It wasn't TOO grim. She was aided and abetted by two of the biggest guys she has ever met, who both saw the box and said "Generator!"

"Blimey, that must be heavy, do you want some help on the stairs?" and as she was mindful of what Valerie had just said about carrying heavy loads, she was wise enough to say "Yes please, how very kind, thank you", and managed the last bit home by herself.

"Yippee.. HeeHee".. I heard all these happy noises coming up the hall and wondered what on earth had happened, she came into the bedroom, snatched me off the top of my cupboard perch, kissed Beaky and squeaked "WE'VE got a genny GeeGee, just think what we can do out there with that!"

You see.. there's really NO hope for her, now she'll be cruising pallet yards with naughty Dean who has a big enough car that takes pallets in its' back and who is certainly as mad as she! Pallets make great garden furniture, two long pallets put end to end and linked together make a perfect table for the terrace with shorter ones making the end and middle legs.

Anyway.. there we are! We are now going to have supper and hopefully tomorrow will be a slightly 'calmer' and dryer day!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 1st, 2016.

SUMMER IN THIS CITY STARTS TODAY..

Yippee folks.. it's raining! Yes.. good 'honest' rain, which is just what we need. Don't grumble, it's not Monday so your washing won't get wet but the ground will and as everything planted or growing now needs moisture, as well as sunshine, everything should / will be well!

Especially our FIGS! For besides Cypriot fig, for she has a Violetta, born in the Bavarian Alps and used to extremely low temperatures and two Brown Turkeys. But the Turkeys are still little babies, we won't be eating their fruits this year.

She has four very long poles and is going to dig four big holes, pour in quick drying cement, put the poles in and erect a cage of fine horticultural mesh around Cypriot fig, the Violetta is small enough to put a light net over her, this stops naughty birds having figs for tasty teas!

Her lunch is chilling in a box, cold steak cut into strips, it marinated over night in a garlic, ginger and soy mix, she'll add fresh herbs and lettuce. Water bottle is chilling in the fridge, she'll eat her lunch in the small park at about 12.30am, then be ready for her 1.30pm appointment with Valerie.

Yesterday it rained.. all day! Oh, she was SO happy! Especially as she had just dug over a couple of beds and found the soil to be very dry and her garlic beds are much too dry, this means the garlic are not expanding as much as they should do.

But she had a most successful day! For she found, finally, the BIG Hozelock attachment for an oval tap, they take up to a 24mm diameter and have a wind-up key which tightens the attachment around the tap spout, their code is 2177, they're reclusive beasts, she found it in Homebase in Battersea.

Then went onto the big Tesco on the Cromwell Road. It wasn't yet mark down time but the smiley fishmonger greeeted her and said "How are you, how is the allotment, you must be happy with this rain? Oh go quickly to the discount place, Tom's there", she went and found Tom, his assistant, putting things out onto the shelves.

Yubba-Dubba! A huge whole side of wild salmon for £10.50! And other such goodies, all perfect to pop into frosty white larder.. aka freezer and also two chunks of Wensleydale, a cheese she loves, and a chunk of parmesan. These goodies and two kilo tubs of Fat Free Lancashire Yoghurt, which is truly absolutely delicious, together with a cucumber, completed her shop.

She came home and thankful that it was working, she switched the heating on to low, made a mug of amber nectar, got out a cutting board, sharpened a knife and cut the salmon side into pieces, bagged it, wrote on the label and put it away. "Yummy fish GeeGee, really yummy fish, how kind he was to tell me".

But all this excitement happened yesterday. Today is the first day of Summer, yes, folks, it's now June and nearly 10.00am, so we have to flap and shake our wings and legs and get our show on the road.

Stay happy and healthy out there folks, play nice and BE kind. And remember.. always walk on the sunny side of the street.. in real life AND in your mind.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 1st, 2016.
PostScript: It was so cold and wet and as she had multiple layers of clothing on when she went out, I understood when she said she couldn't strip off to a vest and leggings and weigh herself on the electronic scales in Boots yesterday.. for surely the men in white coats would have taken her away and then.. who would've cooked my supper?