Splice the mainbrace

It was probably the Cowherds pub which backs onto Southampton Common, it’s only a short walk up the Avenue from Elizabeth House.

I was surprised when Jet 2 chose Bournemouth (Hurn) airport as their southern hub over Southampton airport last month which has much better facilities and connectivity, they must have their reasons as they are a good company. 8c dry but breezy here this morning. I managed to cut the grass yesterday before we had heavy showers late afternoon. Also pruned the buddleia and used a face mask after reading why I cough so much when pruning, it’s the fine hairs on the shrub being breathed in. My team Southampton won last night that’s 3 in a row and after thinking we were out of automatic promotion from the Championship are back in the race and we’re reining in Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds. I saw this video online and found it very funny and clever summing up the current situation. https://x.com/jhgolld/status/1779477155870642229?s=48&t=ZaIQ9msuYS3ZMidRv6Tkmg Bad news though is that Portsmouth got promotion to the Championship. Hampshire police will be hoping that Southampton now get promotion because the derby causes huge issues and resources. In recent times they’ve had to ‘bubble’ the coaches in and out of the cities and they still got attacked.

I’ve just read on the bbc an article from 3 days ago about the spring booster being available to book from today online or on tel no. 119 for over 75s, people in care homes and immunosuppressed. Eligible people will be contacted but I hadn’t seen it publicised. It’s under the bbc news health section.

We were awoken this morning at 6.15 by 2 claps of thunder, torrential rain and wind beating it into the windows. Now it’s still windy with a few passing showers and 8c. Tomorrow is forecast to be dry so I have allocated it as a gardening day.

I don’t remember this sort of small flies years ago but we have just a few of them now and again, I’ve noticed them when staying in hotels as well. We don’t often have fresh fruit out, we do have a couple of house plants and I think they must ‘live’ in the moist compost?

We had unexpected light rain as well not long after I’d applied washing up liquid solution onto our patio to kill the moss, I’ll have to do it again if the rain nullified it.

14c bright with a light breeze here at the moment. Getting ready to spend 4 days watching the Masters golf, like tennis I only watch the major tournaments but love it when they are on, part of my sporting year. However I need to contact Sky to go through the 18 month charade of getting their renewal price down, it’s very annoying, I’ve been with them for 32 years and they have VIP this and that but not on renewal price for loyalty. I accessed my blood test results online yesterday for statin lipids, liver and kidney analysis and all is ok apart from slightly low sodium and high 2.3 mmol hdl (good) cholesterol.

Supposedly the Man City and Chelsea investigations are more complex so will take longer, however if found guilty they should have a HUGE punishment but the Premier League will probably not.

Good draw last night👍

8c, cloudy but dry at the moment but rain not far off according to the rain radar. Our lawn treatment service was postponed yesterday due to the deluge and storm yesterday, now coming tomorrow. Following the travel insurance chat, with the Nationwide I get free cover for one prescription statin drug, I wonder how the new arrangement with Aviva will view this. However my wife’s charge is £63 for statin plus one other. I am classed as high cholesterol because I had a total cholesterol of over 6 nearly 20 years ago in my mid forties and have been on statins ever since. However my bad cholesterol since has always been below the 4mmol max but I have higher good at around 2 when the minimum target is 1 so still around a total of 5 overall.

We’ve been very satisfied with the Nationwide flexplus travel insurance for many years. They paid out quickly when we had to curtail our holiday in Vietnam when the world was locking down 4 years ago. I have just renewed our add ons which means we will be with UK insurance until next year however renewals after 30th April? will be with Aviva. We’ll have to see what health renewal costs are with Aviva if we continue with flexplus or not.

7c, rainy and stormy here this morning and the forecast is for it to stay this way until mid afternoon😩 Since I retired we only have one car now and we manage ok between us, it is 4 1/2 years old and we have had it for 3 1/2 years. A complete contrast to when I was working when we had 2 cars from the company which we changed every 6 months, so 4 new cars a year. It’s taken a bit of getting used to having to arrange servicing and MOTs after 20 years not having to do so.

This is where the mobility shop is. MIL managed to buy a rollator that suited her.

The shop is on Tunstall Trade Park so we can park right outside. MIL is only 4ft 10in so it’s important that the rollator is comfortable for her height, so she needs to try before she buys.

12c and cloudy here but at least it isn’t raining, for now. We’re taking my MIL to Stoke (Tunstall) today to buy a rollator. Her mobility has deteriorated a lot in the last year and after starting to use a stick last year she has reached the stage where she needs the stability of a rollator, much to her disgust as she has always prided her mobility compared to others of similar age. She is 90 next month.