Would you believe it is 21 October already? Battleaxe doesn’t feel as if she has done anything useful this month. What do you mean you silly woman? You have been to Sicily and back. Yes I know but… first there was the bit of holiday that didn’t happen, then recovering from the bit that did happen, then Covid jab and dentist – see later, then preparing for the bathroom Men, who arrived to redo our upstairs shower this morning. I suppose by ‘useful’ I largely mean writing. Have only written a couple of hundred words of Novel 3 so far this month. Ah well. Here’s a photo of a distinctly gloomy looking Rye Harbour at the weekend…
Re-entering the world of newspapers and the news apps doesn’t improve the mood. On holiday I only go for limited news access. Do you remember, back in the day, looking for an English newspaper when abroad? If you were lucky, you found a tattered three-day-old copy of the Daily Mail in a run-down convenience store at some exorbitant price. On early holidays to Turkey, we used to read an obscure English language publication called the Turkish Daily News, which has long since disappeared. It did cover foreign news, but was mainly concerned with things like the current state of the pistachio industry or the sewage system in Izmir…
But back at home, here and now, one is constantly confronted with the increased derangement of Trump, the predicament of Ukraine, the continuing brutality and lying of the Israelis, the bigoted utterances of Reform councillors and candidates, not forgetting of course, the current media obsession with the trial of Russell Brand. A more unsavoury creature would be hard to imagine – apart from Trump himself, of course.
So, after a few days of dealing with piles of washing and other grim house jobs – despite a few good bits, catching up with friends, even catching up with Celebrity Traitors – on Friday it was off for our Covid jabs. Now, looking back through my posts, I don’t think Battleaxe has mentioned her history of bad reactions to Covid jabs. The early Astra-Zeneca ones were the worst – at least a day in bed feeling totally awful. Things improved to half a day as time went on, but I still had to be sure to leave a free day after the jab. Philosopher always did much better. But this time? Oh blimey. On Saturday I was in bed until lunchtime, but then got up thinking the worst was over. Not so, things got much worse over Saturday evening. Horribly sore arm, aching limbs, fever, headache, massive fatigue – and Philosopher was the same. Sleep? Forget it. Restless and feverish dreams. Even if we had planned to go to the Hastings Bonfire, we couldn’t. Sunday was not much better – still horribly tired. Monday – still tired. Today – still not right. Goodness knows what was going on but the weekend was a total write-off. And, would you believe, we have our flu jabs booked for this Friday! Can’t believe the same could happen again but who knows? Is it even worth having these jabs?
Phew, time for another photo – still at Rye Harbour:
What of the dentist – I had to go and have a big back tooth drilled out and refilled. We now go to the Harrow Lane Dental Practice, who seem very good – as far as dentists go… Battleaxe had bad teeth as a child, and had a good few extracted. I can still smell and taste the heavy black rubber mask they used to administer the gas. I remember furiously fighting it, to no avail… and then waking up being so horribly sick. I still intensely dislike going to the dentist – injections, noooo, drilling, eek. But dental practice has so much improved that my teeth are probably now pretty good for someone my age. They have mostly stopped using those shiny amalgam fillings – in fact the EU banned them in 2025 due to their mercury content – and my new filling is a glamorous shiny white.
In our early days in Hastings we used to go to what was then called the Battle Road Dental Practice. As private patients we went upstairs to the Dental Studio, which had comfy sofas, newspapers, a dedicated receptionist… you name it. Our dentist was handsome and avuncular. But… after Covid, like so much in our lives, everything changed, and definitely not for the better. The practice was taken over by a large dental conglomerate company. Both our dentist and our hygenist resigned, we were not assigned a new dentist that we liked, the Dental Studio was dismantled, we could never contact the overworked receptionist downstairs to get an appointment. So we left. I don’t really approve of using private practice but NHS dentistry is now in such a shocking state – and sorry, I want to keep my teeth as long as I can.
Today, we left the workmen making a huge drilly noise, and went down to Rock-A-Nore for a walk, not realising there was a Force 9 Gale. We could scarcely stand up. But as you can see, the sea was rather beautiful. Went to the RNLI shop to buy their Christmas cards and other little nick-nacks in a supportive sense. I have read that people are buying RNLI cards then posting them to Freepost Reform office, so they have to pay.
Of all the grim things happening just now, the abuse of RNLI volunteers by mindless morons and thugs is one of the most distressing.
Sending the cards sounds a great idea but I have enough trouble writing my own, never mind sending them to Reform. But they shoved some vile leaflet thought our door the other day, so will definitely send that back. Am tempted to send a couple of old books as well, to make the parcel heavy. Anyway, for anyone who fancies taking a few more pence off Reform, here is the Freepost address!
Reform UK, FREEPOST RTLT-ZXHY-KSDC, 83 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0HW.
One more photo:
