Onwards and slowly upwards… and another scam!

Well, it is indeed upwards, which is cheering, but on a very gentle incline. Philosopher will have been home three weeks tomorrow. We went to the hospital clinic last Tuesday. They said he was doing very well, but given the nature of the operation he has had, it would be at least another month before significant progress was made. He also had a slight wound infection, for which they prescribed antibiotics – which seem to have worked. And what about Battleaxe?  Plugging along…. but still experiencing high levels of anxiety. But this morning was beautifully sunny, and we went to the Country Park. Philosopher walked all the way from the top car park by the loos to the coastguard cottages and back.

This whole situation has made me feel very anxious and stressed – not at all surprising – and over the past two years, living through the pandemic has raised my anxiety levels anyway.  Unfortunately, anxiety always seems to go straight to the Battleaxe guts – it always has, throughout my life, but as you can imagine, it is quite bad now. I guess I will have to go through the utterly hideous process  of trying to book an appointment with the GP.  Woe betide them if I eventually manage to get through on the phone and they say no appointments for three weeks or something.  Others have told me that is how it is.  At my age, persistent  gut symptoms can’t go uninvestigated, no matter that I am sure they are linked to my state of mind.

Philosopher’s  main trouble now is still around eating, and eating enough. Clearly, his digestive system is having to relearn a whole new way of working, and that will take time.  He gets uncomfortably full up very quickly. However, he has just eaten a reasonable roast chicken dinner…

The weather has been insane.  When I last wrote we were in the middle of a heatwave… next thing we knew, at the end of last week it was snowing.  Now, the snow is past and gone, and it is sunny again, but still cold.  The plants in the garden don’t know what to make of it, and I have had to bring my baby plants into the living room to keep warm.

Talking of keeping warm, what on earth is going on with energy bills? We are on a fixed rate until the end of April, but then we will have to face grief… I felt really sorry for people with less money on Friday (April Fools Day. Our government sure is taking us for fools). Not only was it ‘Bleak Friday’ as the media put it, the day when energy bills and the prices of lots of other things went up, but the weather suddenly turned bitterly cold and snowy. Many people must have felt close to suicidal.

Talking of money, would you believe I was the victim of yet another scam the other day.  Got the text below, which linked to a 100% legitimate looking NHS website. It looked perfect – linked to all the other NHS pages you would expect on a real site.

It invited me to send for a PCR test costing 99p. The page had the little security padlock symbol and eveything.  I filled in my details but then just vaguely wondered…. something didn’t feel right. I contacted Barclays and they didn’t know whether it was legit or not, and advised me to ‘freeze’ my card, meaning it is temporarily blocked. Did so, but yesterday evening I wanted something from Amazon so unfroze it – thought it would be long enough for any possible scammers to have given up. Next thing, was just watching an episode of Bridgerton when Barclays texts me – had I just spent £56.45 at Pizza Hut in Ponders End? As if. How low could you go. So they declined the payment and my card is now out of use – waiting for a new one.  It is odd though – for all Barclays knew I could well have been in Ponders End just fancying a ton of pizza… what made them think it was not legit?  Well, well done that bank, I say.  So, that is two scams I’ve fallen foul of in four months. Here is the post about the last one.  You can see that was just after my sister died… argh… is it any wonder that Battleaxe is feeling stressed. It has been a tough few months.

Heesh, by the way, that Bridgerton is absolute, utter rubbish. I enjoyed the first series but this is just far too silly.

Meanwhile, the state of the world continues to be probably, the worst ever. Prices and cost of living through the roof, Government don’t care. Covid rates through the roof, Government not only don’t care, but are busy dismantling all testing etc.  Brexit continues to wreak havoc with parts of the economy. Situation in Ukraine continues, unstoppably distressing and dire.  Putin’s lunatic carry-on has changed the world as we know it, and who do we have as Foreign Secretary?  Hell yes, Liz Truss!

Finally, Philosopher had some very sad news this week. His friend, Fiona Larden, the former Principal of Fircroft College in Birmingham, has sadly died. They met when Philosopher was Chair of Governors, and had been friends ever since.  She died far too young, from pancreatic cancer. Here she is with Philosopher at her retirement do in 2014.  She will be greatly missed.