Chris 's Card

My Birthday today !

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Ventolin & Fostair Inhalers hang from the head of the mule........♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Los Angeles 1974

Blue Orchids at The Hebden Bridge Trades Club.

 

All photos and (8) Videos here --> https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/G-i-g-s/Blue-Orchids-Hebden-Bridge-Trades-Club-/

A photo of them backing Nico in the Olden Daze.

Blue Orchids & Bingo Harry

 

Friday night I went to my first gig since March 2020 ( that was at Bury Met with Don & Margaret) https://everton.blogspot.com/2020/03/just-before-boris-closes-all-our.html 

Tonight I went to see Manchester band Blue Orchids at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge.. They have been going since 1979 . They started life supporting Nico during her "Manchester Period" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Orchids 

Great Music ! 

Ken is mates with 2 of the support band Bingo Harry ( pictured)

A Curry

C S & N 1990

"The Blind Pig" in Sowerby Bridge

As a coda to my previous post. Here is Julie Mareth Hall the landlady of "The Blind Pig" in Sowerby Bridge being screened ( the same night) on BBC Look North.

A Photo I took of Julie . Plus , here is the pub's website The BLIND PIG

Hemmingway in Halifax

This is Phil the Ex-Fireman in front of an advertising hoarding in Halifax town centre.

 He looks a bit like Ernest Hemmingway.Non?

 Phil is my oldest friend. We first met at secondary school in 1963. We went to stay with  his family  on the Shankhill Road in East Belfast in 1968 and, later, hitched around Ireland ,the same year, meeting Beach Boy Mike Love and spending a morning with him  ! True! not bull shitting!

Plus a million other things later (n.b.  I am a Grand Parent to his children) 

A Sound Gezzer! I Love the bloke.We are Solid.

 Anyway.We went in Halifax for our first evening drink in 18 months tonight . Ken & Phil wanted to go in the afternoon , but I'd booked a Sauna/Gym & swim today so it had to be late. 

Very dead in Town .Lots of tumbleweed !. Ken bumped into a friend called Julie .... she's the landlady of "The Blind Pig"  in Sowerby Bridge . It was her birthday on Thursday ... .[Pictured below on the right.....]

The audio is Eric Clapton .

 

movies

 

Manchester :with John Thompson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thomson_(comedian)

 

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Manchester-8th-Jully-2021/ x

The dog's called Lulu

So I went up To Bob's in Bacup this week. 9 of us go for a Curry in Hebden Bridge in a couple of week's time.

On Thursday I meet Martin & Ken for a look around Manchester,

3 Saunas: extra Swims & Gyms this past week. So pretty chilled!

 

Audio is Live at the Calavaras County Fairgrounds, Angel’s Camp, CA; August 23, 1987. Grateful Dead (of course!)

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐧

Pennsylvania coal breakers (breaker boys), 1912.

‘There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work,’

said photographer Lewis Hine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine

So A Gentle Week. Blood Pressure ok & i got my vitamins. 6 week course of InviaD3. https://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/medicines-advice/cholecalciferol-25-000-international-units-oral-solution-invita-d3-abbreviatedsubmission-101114/

 

Plus I have bought over the counter  some multi vits & (an old favourite of mine) Grapefruit Seed Extract.

By the looks of the packet ,InvitaD3 is pretty heavy duty ( 500.000 units instead of the 10 units from over the counter stuff)

May well be the placebo effect, but i do already feel a bit perkier!

3 lots of swimming these past 3 days plus a 90 minute sauna. 

Hopefully my hypochondria is ahealing........

audio : Laura Nyro :1994 "When I Die"

x

waiting for news of my prescription........

 

We went in the Antique Place near Hebden Bridge Surgery

 It's the first time I've been in there since the start of Covid.

 Lots of new 'Old Stuff'. For example this 18th century Ball & Chain . A snip at £350 .Although why ,& who for , you would buy one..I'm not sure....... 

After my "Thyroid" & "Cancer" Adventures at the hospital last week..... ( turned out I'm just fat ! ) today I went to see my Blood Pressure Nurse . 

 Previously she had thought I *might* need 'to go on tablets' for it. Thankfully my readings today are much better, so I have been spared that. I asked her to translate all my Blood Results, which mostly are very good . No problems regarding diabetis , liver , etc The only dodgy scores were for vitamin deficiencies ( B & D ) 

.Someone is ringing me tommorrow to sort out a prescription for meds for this. Probably tablets..although she did warn I might need injections ( 6 over two weeks!) But hopefully not that........ 

Anyway , all in all, good news on the health front . My nurse was especially impressed by my kidneys . She said I had "the kidneys of a 12 year old". Which is good news for me, although maybe not so good for that 12 year old...........?

Sweating Near The Ghost Hotel

 

This Friday night was almost like the olden days! 

I went swimming in Todmorden and, because the sauna there is still closed, I then drove an extra 7 miles to Burnley Baths for a sweat ( that's the 3rd sauna/Turkish bath in as many weeks)

. Good to see they still have that  ' Ghost Hotel' opposite it ...

Manchester UK Free Trade Hall; May 7,1965

 I am Still Missing Out On Those Live Gigs

 ( Cath at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club watching British Sea Power) 

 

 

 

Gammon Googles

I am a fat bastard

Just a quick update on my health . 

Yesterday morning I went to see the consultant at The Ear Nose & Throat Clinic at Calderdale Royal Hospital , Halifax.

( He was a really nice bloke)

 I was half expecting to hear him mutter words like "Thyroid" & "Cancer"  .But instead he gave me a clean bill of health, other than saying if I lost a couple of stone , my wobbly -neck should vanish . 

Which is a great relief, obviously . 'Seems I am still immortal , for another few days at least....! 

Although it might  beg a few questions as to why I was there in the first place? 

At the end of the examination with the consultant  , for want of something else to say , I asked him  to translate the blood tests the GP  had taken over two weeks ago.

It turns out they showed my thyroids were ok . Had I known this ,I would not have spent all this time worrying and 'imagining the worst' . .

I should really have been having having these conversations with my GP  ( who I have neither seen or spoken to, throughout  this whole process........) 

This Week

My Cancer /Thyroid appointment is now on Monday 14th June at 11 am 

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!) 

Here are some photos from the week...

 

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Week-begining-30th-May-2021/

Postscripts # 1 & 2

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" ?

Leeds and next week's hospital visit

I went with Chris into Leeds yesterday. He had a meeting there .While he was in it, I had time to kill ,so I wandered around Holbeck ( not a place I know) and took these photos.

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......

 

Johnny's in the basement mixing up the medicine

 

in Hebden Bridge : 𝐕𝐢𝐯𝐚 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 !

 

The Dreaming Room.

 

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,

Hebden Bridge Today.

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Hebden-Bridge-Protest-115-May-2021/ 

The manoeuvres look the same to me........and also throw The Warsaw Ghetto in, just for good measure... 

(one of Roger's fine photos)

Todmorden Today

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Todmorden-13-May-2021/ 

Manchester

 

Is this what we dreamed of?

meeting up in Manchester the end of next week

 

in Halifax

 

Lucinda Williams :San Francisco 1989

 

This week : a haircut, some gyms & swims , and a Manifesto !

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

Newcastle ,during the minute silence for Prince Philip.

 

Thelma Walker campaigning in Hartlepool this week.

Thelma's CV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Walker

The Northern Independence Party

 

More Info : The Northern Independence Party (NIP)

Hells Angel of The North

 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!

. 

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.........