A hot date with Hosay (Jose)

Since retiring I have had to change my dentist because I cannot afford to pay the fee to go privately anymore and my last visit was in March. Luckily, a new dentist has started up only twenty minutes walk away and they were taking new NHS patients so I duly trotted along last month and registered. They made an appointment for me to see the dentist for a check-up a couple of days later and afterwards, she recommended that I see the hygienist so I made the appointment but there was a couple of weeks wait.
Today I attended my appointment and the hygienist turned out to be a young dark haired man with very dark mysterious eyes. He introduced himself as Hosay (Jose). I am not sure if he was Spanish or from a South American country but his accent was very heavy.
He looked into my mouth and then breathed "Higham going to geev you a deep clean" and then proceeded to scrape away at my teeth humming quietly to himself as he worked. Now I'm not really a fan of any dentist or hygienist but I am terrified of having either false teeth or badly stained dirty looking teeth and that's why I religiously turn up on time for all my dental appointments.
After a few minutes my clasped hands were getting tighter across my middle and he stopped and asked me if I was alright. I told him I was and then he said "You haf tartar everywhere so if I hurt you just lift your hand". I nodded and he carried on scraping and humming and every so often muttered "Tartar everywhere". Eventually he finished and asked me to rinse and while I was doing this he asked me what sort of toothbrush I used, did I floss and did I use a mouthwash. I said that I used an electric toothbrush and yes, I did floss and occasionally used interdental brushes but not mouthwash (remembering that I emptied a half bottle down the drain last week because it had been on the bathroom shelf untouched for about six months).
"Don't waste your money on mouthwash" he said, "Just use toothpaste and water. There eez no need for mouthwash". Then he told me that my cleaning was very good even in the difficult areas but the reason he had given me a deep clean was because the tartar was just below the gum line. He went on to explain that this may only need to be done once a year and just a general scrape and clean in six months time.
When I got home I looked in the mirror and there is certainly a big difference. I know too many people my age and older who believe that going to the hygienist only damages the teeth and so consequently their teeth don't look very nice and I certainly wouldn't want them in my mouth!

Someone's seen the light at last

This morning I nearly choked on my muesli while I listened to the news because at last a politician has 'seen the light' so Praise be to God because it's something that's long, long overdue.
Before long those who have been unemployed for over a year will be made to carry out jobs such as cleaning the streets, gardening, painting schools etc. and if they refuse then their benefits will be sanctioned for up to three months.
I wouldn't mind betting that tomorrow morning a lot of advisers in the jobcentres up and down the country will be jumping up and down and shouting with joy. For the last seven or more years of my working life I dealt with long term unemployed and a huge majority of them had no intention of finding work, many were working cash in hand or up to other scams but they knew as long as they 'played the game' there wasn't anything we could do about it, besides, they all knew how to get round the system better than any of us. We knew all the best ways to catch them out though!
So now they will have no choice and the reason that this step is being taken is to get people into a routine of getting up and going to work. Many of the younger unemployed don't even realise that ther is more than one 9 o'clock in the day!
So at last, it's a step in the right direction and now all he has to do is to enforce a system similar to 'the green card' that was in operation many years ago where an employer had to employ ten per cent of employees with a green card. This was carried by those who had some barrier to employment and included those who had certain disabilities and those with learning difficulties who would otherwise have been unemployed. Employers today often don't want to bother with people who need repetitive menial tasks and extra supervision so these people are pushed out of normal society and are left to claim either jobseeker's allowance or employment support allowance. So, the government now needs to bring in legislation to help these people, many of whom would like to work, and make employers give them adequate support because although employers are not supposed to discriminate against people like this, they most certainly do.

The great Christmas rip off

This morning when I was out shopping I did actually buy my first Christmas present. OK, so I know it is only a little squeaky toy for Eden's dog but because she's so small it can be quite difficult to find something suitable for her. I also bought back a gift catalogue from Boots so that I could browse through it, perhaps to get some ideas and I wanted to look for a particular item that Sarah had asked for for Christmas.
When I got home I made a cup of coffee and sat down to look through and I was absolutely shocked at how much people are ripped off at Christmas. Now I know that perfumes are expensive, but when they put them in a fancy box with a small tube of body lotion then you will probably need a mortgage to buy it. Then there are the bath products, usually very small sizes of bath foam, body lotion and hand cream in a toilet bag and costing three times as much as they would if you bought each item separately. The same goes for cosmetics such as lipstick, eye shadows and nail varnish. Several different colours in smaller than usual pots but costing much more than they normally would.
Now, I've made a point of asking Sarah and my grand-children what they want for Christmas so that I can buy the right things and I know then that they won't be disappointed on Christmas Day. They also know that now I have retired I don't have as much money to spend on them as I used to and they have accepted that. I just don't understand people who spend so much on Christmas presents that it takes them the whole of next year paying for them and shops and advertising men are very good at getting them to part with their money. Spending the earth on someone does not prove that you think anymore of them because love and respect cannot be bought.
Besides, Christmas has become so commercialised that I am sure most people have forgotten the real meaning and why we have it in the first place, instead they prefer to worship at the house of retail rather than the house of God.

Say cheese!

Watching part of a television programme today where the presenter was in Wensleydale in Yorkshire, visiting a dairy that made Wensleydale cheese, I was reminded of many years ago when I had a go at making Cheddar cheese.
It was when I was nursing and working in theatres, I had a friend who came from a dairy farm in Somerset. We were both lucky enough to have the same day off one week and she wanted to go home to get some jumpers. As she didn't have a car and I did, we set off to the farm which was about thirty five miles away.
When we arrived and she had got what she needed she asked if I would like to see the dairy where her parents were both working. I didn't need to be asked twice. We met her Dad in the dairy and he started to show me around while my friend was talking to her Mum. They were in the process of making cheese so they asked me if I would like to have a go to. Of course I did, after all, it's not every day an opportunity like that comes along!
Her Dad had explained the process and now her Mum showed me how to get hands on. All the time I was helping I was asking loads of questions because I like to know how everything works and by the time my visit had come to an end I had received a full personal guided tour and also tried the end product.
The day was certainly one that I will never forget and as we were leaving I thanked her Mum and Dad for such an interesting day. Her Dad told me that I could go back any time because it had been a pleasure to find someone so interested and told me that he often had students from an agricultural college who didn't show as much interest as I had.

A brick in the box

The weather has been a bit strange to say the least this week and it has been unseasonably warm for early November. In fact I have only turned on a couple of heaters and they are on low at the moment. We did have a couple of quite cold mornings a week ago and on Monday last week I even wore my gloves when I went out. I have also noticed that during the last week there have been some quite heavy leaf falls from the trees and their colours are now changing rapidly too.
This week we have had quite a lot of sunny weather but now we have some Atlantic weather fronts which are moving across the country in waves and one of the features of these is the wind which can be quite strong and very gusty at times.
That is why I was woken at 1:15am this morning with a loud crash and in my state of half wakefulness I realised that it was probably my waste food container heading off down the street, probably following the large black re-cycling box as both had been emptied yesterday. There was no way that I was going out at that time to retrieve them and after all, even if they were in the middle of the road I didn't think that there would be that much traffic anyway.
Eventually I managed to doze off again, I had turned on the radio and the American election results were on so that sent me off to sleep! At 5am I woke again and at least the gusty winds had died down but I still could not go back to sleep so at 6am I decided that I would make a cup of tea. While I was at it, I thought I might as well put some clothes on and go out while there was no-one about to find my food bin and re-cycling box.
So there I was with no make-up and very hastily dressed, out wandering down the road at 6am looking for the box. As it turned out it was only the food waste box that had taken off and I found it in the middle of the road about thirty yards away so I picked it up and brought it home. If any cars had come along the road, they had probably driven around it and although it has my house number on it, no-one would bother to bring it back. I couldn't understand how the wind had extricated it from the big black box which I stand on it's end and then put the food waste box inside and anyway, why is it only mine that gets blown down the road?
The forecast is for more gusty and strong winds tonight so I have put a brick into a plastic bag and put it in the food waste box so hopefully it won't disappear tonight and I will get a good night's sleep. I must remember to remove the brick before the waste collection next week!

What about my human rights?

I was disgusted today to hear on the news that some b****y European court has told Britain that we are breaking the law by denying prisoners their human rights by not letting them vote in elections. The ex-prisoner that challenged the 'right to vote' a few years ago, was interviewed on the radio this morning. He had served an eight year sentence for manslaughter, he killed his landlady by smashing her head with an axe. Well, he didn't give a thought for her human rights to live did he? He should have been locked up for life even if the crime wasn't pre-planned because he took the life of another person.
The problem with prisoners is they get everything their own way because most prisons are more like luxury hotels. If someone is sent to prison for any crime, then they should expect to be denied not only their freedom, but all the luxuries that many ordinary hard working people cannot have. The living conditions in many prisons are far superior to those of many honest citizens and yet it's the taxpayer (again) that has to fund their luxury lifestyles.
Not only that, when they are discharged from prison, they go to the top of the social housing lists ahead of people who like me, have worked all their lives, paid all their taxes and get pushed down the list by someone who has deliberately made themselves homeless by comitting a crime in the first place. Many also have no intention of working either because from my time in the Jobcentre, they would nearly all say "No one will employ me because I have a record". Once again the taxpayer (including me, because my little bit of pension is taxed too) has to pay their housing benefit and Jobseeker's Allowance.
So what about the human rights of all honest and hard working people? Surely we have a right to decent, affordable accommodation and the right to keep our pensions without them being taxed.

I wonder who ate that?

Yesterday I baked some scones and later in the afternoon after Tinkerbell and I got back from our walk, I decided to have one with a cup of tea. As the dog was very interested in what I had, I buttered another one and broke a half into pieces in her bowl then I ate the other half myself.
However, she wasn't really interested and just licked some of the butter then walked away. Just before she went home I emptied the bowl onto the bird table so that the bowl could be washed ready for Sarah to take home.
I didn't give much thought to the scone on the bird table until this morning when I was cleaning the oven. I had opened the back door to let some fresh air in because I had to use a chemical spray cleaner in the top oven and I don't like the smell. It was then that I noticed the bird table was completely cleared of food including the scone. I knew that the birds wouldn't have eaten it last night because the clocks changed this weekend and it was dusk when I put it on the bird table so I wondered who had eaten it all. Sometimes a magpie comes to the table and so do a pair of collared doves but I know that they usually come around lunchtime when they know there will be food on the table.
While I waited for the oven cleaner to do it's stuff I decided to put out a little more food onto the bird table because the robin prefers the table to the bird feeders and I also included some sunflower kernels for the suirrel. Within five minutes of coming back inside the squirrel was up on the bird table stuffing his face so I think he was probably watching me from his hiding place on the wall where he can hide in the honeysuckle. Perhaps he ate the scone because he seems to have a taste for things other than nuts. Maybe I might put some more scone out another day or even a biscuit and watch to see who's eating it.