Tuesday 26th September - another quiet day

 More sitting around today, with a couple of little walkabouts in the garden. I can understand why the patients in a sanatorium were put out onto a veranda,, well wrapped up, to benefit from the fresh air. I thought I would follow their example when the sun came out in the afternoon, and sat outside with a crochet blanket arranged around me and a sun hat to shade my face, and read my book for an hour. 

I'm still reading the 'Lark Rise to Candleford' trilogy by Flora Thompson. The pace of the books is gentle and slow, making the 'Miss Read' books seem racy and pacey, and a mile away from the TV series. Perfect reading at the moment, and light relief from the Book Club choice of 'What Strange Paradise' by Omar al Akkaad which is working to what could well turn out to be an ominous and terrible climax.      

One of the things I've been doing is ruling up my 2024 diary. It's about September that I start having appointments arrive for 2024, and although I can enter them on my phone, I like to keep a paper diary as well. Oh, but which one? Which layout? 'How do I plan to use it? Back when I was working nearly full time as a teacher, the September - December academic was the best. Now I prefer January to December, and log piano lessons in a notebook covering the tax year; April to April. 

I've been using this A5 one for 2023;

but it irritates me that Saturday and Sunday are only given half the space of the other days, when they can be just as busy. I also don't find I need as much space for notes etc on the right hand page.

I've bought a lovely A5 notebook, made by Rhodia using Clairefontaine paper. The paper is one of the nicest to use for pens, a great point in its favour as far as I am concerned. (I freely admit to being a notebook nerd with a bit of a stationery obsession).

It doesn't have enough pages to allow for a week on one page and notes on the other, but that's OK as I reckon I will have enough space for notes as well as appointments with this layout.

I suppose some people - many people - will think ruling up an entire year's worth of days and dates in glorious technicolour is a monumental waste of time. I find it a rather 'zen-like' activity, done over several weeks. I'm up to August now, so over halfway.

Cross stitching - yesterday I ran out of yellow in the needle with two stitches to go. Today I threaded up the needles and sewed two stitches. That's it.

But I have finished knitting the toe of the second sock - not as impressive as that might sound, as it is a 'toe-up' sock.

Changing the subject again, here is a photograph of my vandalised pak choi.

There are still 14 seedlings in there, just about hanging on! I put a wire pot stand over the top yesterday, and that seems to have prevented further disturbance.Maybe they'd prefer a cloche. I'll ask them tomorrow.

I am continuing to improve; used the oxygen concentrator a lot less today and by breathing really deeply and doing nothing I can maintain an almost respectable oxygen level of 92%. Using the portable concentrator to get up the stairs helps too.

I did cancel piano lessons timetabled for this evening and tomorrow evening. There's no point rushing things. 

Monday 25th September- on the way up

'Every day in every way I'm getting better and better'

Where did that come from?

It turns out that this little saying has quite serious scientific origins - who knew? It sounds more like something Mary Poppins would have said.

A very quick search on the Internet and I'm on the Wikipedia entry for Èmile Couè, a Frenchman, who developed a theory of heling oneself through auto-suggestion back in 1920.

Anyway, it is holding true for me. Not the auto-suggestion bit, I  mean, but how I am feeling today compared to yesterday. 

The same can be said of my tomatoes; here's how they were a few days ago, on a sunny window upstairs

and now half of them are ready to eat.

I've picked out the ripest, and left the orange and green ones on the other tray on the windsill. I reckon this is much better than shoving them in a paper bag with a ripe banana; that seemed to have no effect at all.

It's been another day of sitting around reading, with some cross stitching. 

Going upstairs was been a real trial yesterday, but this morning I hit on the plan of having the small portable oxygen concentrator ready at the bottom of the stairs. I set it to max and took it with me to go upstairs and into the bathroom without feeling I was going to expire when I get there. Result! 

Slugging is not going to happen tonight either, but I'm hopeful for tomorrow. I went out to look at the garden before it got dark. Still 14 pak choi, but something has been digging in the pot, so they are looking a bit bedraggled. I've had very little success with hanging badko ver the years, but the redundant wire baskets make excellent protective covers to keep 'varmints' off my pots. I've put one over the pak choi.

Tomorrow is another day....

Sunday 24th September

 It's astonishing how one day can be so different to another.

Yesterday was great - warm sunny weather, so many lovely things happened all through the day

and then today. Grey and a little chilly apart from an hour this afternoon.  The covid/flu vaccinations have hit me like a club. I've spent the day on the settee watching back episodes of bake-off (again) apart from a turn round the garden when the sun came out. If my step counter reaches 500 by bedtime I shall be amazed. 

I have almost completed yesterday's cross stitch motif; just a few stitches to go. I stopped when I was losing the plot trying to thread a needle before lunch! I might give it another go now, while the bakers try and create a layered sponged cake and Himself heats mini sausage rolls for supper.