I had my blood pressure checked again today (possibility of me going on tablets for this !) Another check in a couple of weeks..hey-hoy!)
https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Week-begining-30th-May-2021/
An hour after my last post : my "Fast Tracked 14 days" appointment cancelled...... In theory I have a legal right to being seen within 14 days. The deadline for that would be next Friday ( the 4th June )
Plus my blood results now online. 4 out of 5 ok .but the other one not so (see details)
Maybe my invisible GP will translate eventually.......? Weekend & Bank Holiday means nobody to talk to about it until Tuesday ...providing I can get past the receptionist!
Maybe I will post on facebook and ask "Is There A Doctor In The House" ?
Anyway...... I bought some Vit D tablets this evening .
I'm thinking "Thyroids" ?
I had my bloods tested on Thursday.
I go to hospital next Wednesday :"fast track" urgent referred..."to rule out the possibility of ......" the letter said I still havn't seen ,or even spoken to my GP .All I've had has been a 5 minute face-to face with a Practice Nurse ..and the hospital appointment was made before bloods were even taken. I honestly do not know what to think ....or how to think it !
A rather existentially nervous weekend for me!
Maybe ( probably!) I will feel differently about it next week. But at present I feel abandoned by my GP's . No doubt they are doing a grand job of box-ticking (quick referal etc) but it feels like they are just washing their hands of me....... it would have been nice to have had a human voice to explain events.....
Adding insult, it feels automated & impersonal. For example I have had two automatic text messages sent me this week that have been contradictory & inaccurate. So i spend my time talking to receptionists about their mistakes rather than my feelings .
But ,on the issue itself, there is silence. ! " Holistic Medicine" is so " 20th Century" it seems......
After month's of very little , suddenly all sorts of stuff has been happening these past days...
◙ It was Cath's Birthday today.
◙ I had my second Covid jab on Wednesday.
◙ I have also seen the Practice Nurse at my GP's about a goiter-type thingy on my neck.
◙ I am having blood tests next week and the week after ( 2nd June) I have a 30 minute appointment at the EN&T Department at Calderdale Royal Hospital . I'm thinking...maybe even hoping, it's 'just' a thyroid affair...I mean it's not hurting or any other symptoms...I only went to the GP because of the vanity of how it looked..saying that , i have felt a bit ' rundown ', but that's about it.
◙ The day afterwards ,Thursday 3rd June, i have booked a session at Harrogate Turkish Baths . My first sweat in 15 months!
◙ On Friday 4th June I go to this gig ( again my first since covid lockdown) .It's run by Richard Walker , who i used to work with at Calderdale MBC,
https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Hebden-Bridge-Protest-115-May-2021/
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| A Todmorden Bookshop |
Audio: Jerry Jeff Walker : Texas 1991
As I have already said here , I am no longer in The Labour Party .
I am , currently, much taken with the new Northern Independence Party .
How they pan out is unclear. It's very early days.
They only have 5 candidates standing in the coming local elections ,plus Thelma Walker the former Labour MP for Colne Valley, who is standing for them in the Hartlepool by-election .( who will be lucky not to lose her deposit)
They are (like me) Corbyn Refugees .Socialists. I can't fault their logic. I hope they establish themselves and ( at the very least) give the Starmeristas a sharp nudge and stand candidates in every Northen seat ( they even talking of standing a candidate in Holborn , Starmer's seat)
Anyway ,its a long-term thing .Much will change before 2024
They pubished their Manifesto this week.Read it here .Personally, I can find no fault here https://www.freethenorth.co.uk/ourfuture
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| Newcastle ,during the minute silence for Prince Philip. |
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| Thelma Walker campaigning in Hartlepool this week. |
Thelma's CV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Walker
Today,this biker in Hebden Bridge had just been moved on by a Traffic Warden for parking in a dangerous
place.and he saw me taking photos of that exchange.
So, seconds later, he aimed his machine
at me.(Nearly got my toes seconds after this photo was taken ! )
"Social Distancing"is a thing of the past!
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audio is Polly Harvey in 2000.
x
In other news, I left the Labour Party last May.(12 months ago I had an email from The Labour Party saying I was "under investigation":n.b. I wasn't suspended, but the treat was there. As I given so much time to the party over recent years it felt like a slap in the face . So I jumped, rather than waiting to be pushed)
Today ,I dislike Starmer more than Johnson . I certainly will not be voting Labour in the coming local elections and I am seriously thinking of joining this lot instead with a view to 2024. .
I have voted Labour in EVERY local & national election on for 50 years . That it has come to this is incredible. (is this how Labour lost Scotland?) So Sad. I don't really take any pride in the situation .
The Northern Independence Party (NIP) are mentioned in The Guardian today.True Socialists.in a Corbyn -fashion.but , it turns out, maybe Starmer's bastard child? ..... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/03/northern-independence-party-electoral-british-politics?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1617444975
Strange Days.........
so I'm using an alternative platform this week
the photo is of the blossom in Hebden Bridge Park 22nd March
audio is of my friend Gareth Scott , from the album "The Basin Stone"
i've not been very well ( in a 'man-flu 'kinda way ) Headache: sore arm : dizzy and (strangley )
I have been really adverse to loud sounds of any kind.
So.Anyway. I arrive in Hebden Bridge to be greeted by some Opera Lass doing her level best to make my ears bleed...........
So my 14 day free trial of Deep Nostalgia™ has finished and i have cancelled my account https://www.myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia
the photos i have tried with it have been interesting , but with unpredicatable results. Some have been splendid ( i have shared a few here already e'g my Grandmother Helen; view here
https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/COLOURISED-IMAGES/i-5wDh4Zn/A)
Others have been either poor or plain weird!
Anyway , before my trial finished i tried uploading a few more. Here is one I like. I took this photo in Havana in 1997. It's of a lass called Norby ,and was taken in The Hemingway Bodega https://theculturetrip.com/caribbean/cuba/articles/an-introduction-to-la-bodeguita-del-medio-cubas-most-popular-bar/
I stayed in Havana for about a week. I was lucky in that for much of the time I was a guest of Norby and her Mum and family . She introduced me to the wonderful city.
They had some interesting contacts ! She introduced me to the then Auxiliary Bishop of Havana (!) who showed me ,one afternoon, around Havana Cathedral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_Cathedral
Despite what you may imagine , the authorities seemed ok with religion. They dont do the churches any favours, but it seemed tolerated.
My Polish upbringing has made me a bit of a sucker for graveyards and Havana has a massive one right in the middle of it. Colon Cemetery is superb and Norby showed me Amelia Goyri's grave which is a bit of a legend
.https://havanatimes.org/features/amelia-goyri-cubas-miracle-maker/
She also took me to see a "weeping Statue" that scores of Cubans visit, once a week, to watch it weep and say prayers. (no, i saw nowt)
Three final vignettes:
• On the first day there , I was sat in a Cafe and asked the waitress for a "Coca Cola" . She immediately , at the top of her loud booming voice , gave me a two minute lecture about how Coca Cola was something "US /capitalist" and they didnt sell it there .In future I must ask for "Cuban Cola". I suitably blushed & stuttered.•
• One day I said to Norby I wanted to go to the beach ( Havana didnt seem to have any i could find) she took me to one she said "local people couldn't use". We arrived .It was nice enough but deserted . A soldier stood guard and asked to see my passport . Once on the beach I sunbathed alone for a while .Then suddenly I saw a nurse (in white) cross my eyeline ,pushing very slowly a pram along the sand.(not easy to walk in nurse-shoes pushing a pram on sand i guess.....) It was like a scene from some slow-motion 60's Avant Garde movie .
Norby later explained that there was a nearby hospital and the Cuban Government took in a quota of children who were victims of the Chernobyl Disaster.•
• My final memory .The best! was being sat in a square in the city listening to Buena Vista Social Club's debut cd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buena_Vista_Social_Club_(album)
i had bought it in Manchester Airport . Some local kids must have heard what i was listening too and one asked to listen himself .Within 5 minutes I had a huddle of a dozen kids passing the headphones around singing and dancing around along to the music. They just didnt seem to sell cds in Havana .Rare as hens teeth At the time I felt a little proud , although it seems a little sad now.......
To compound my sadness , on my final day, I found ,in the corner of a "Revolutionary Bookshop" the only cds in the shop. I bought all 3 (of Cuban Music ). I bought all of them. And probably flew away with all the cd's in Cuba in my baggage .............
We Saw & heard live music this week!
audio:Sandy Denny live :I saw heard her live once at Krumlin
England's finest singer!
In other news, I get my first Covid jab on Monday
All grand music ( ten tracks) Spoiled for choice!
Here is some info on Matt https://mattsteady.bandcamp.com/
2 pictures I took.
"1921 by Gilbert Bayes. 2 small sculptures are of children in Portland stone one called "THE LAMP OF MEMORY...
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1314108
Who Died in Childbirth, So even my Mum never knew her........
Linda Thompson ( of Richard & Linda Thompson fame) said this was "Amazing" when I posted on facebook today.
This Week.
Me outside a window of the Hope Gallery in Hebden Bridge.
Making an Exhibition of myself.......
