Monday, January 26, 2009

Nothing to report

I'm afraid life in the BOGOF household hasn't been that exciting hence the lack of blogs.

The side effects from my painkillers have worn off but not before it decided to set off my IBS for a few days. Thankfully that's settled down too.

So that's about the sum total of the news.

Marie

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Less (Than) is More (Than)

Insurance renewal. It’s always a bit of an odd time, but this year was even odder.

My insurance renewal arrived from More Than and it was for £374. Given the kind of car I drive this wasn’t such a bad price. If you drive an Alfa Romeo, some companies won’t even quote.

Of course no-one would accept the offer without looking for a better price so off to the internet I went.

Marie decided that she didn’t want to drive my car anymore, so we decided to see what price I could get without her on the policy. Best price offering like for like was £250, from More Than …

Silly me thought that all I had to do was ring them and get Marie taken off the policy and all would be fine. How wrong I was.

I was informed that to get a policy for me only would cost £391, an increase of £17. You could have heard a pin drop when I told the “Customer Manager” in the call centre the price I had been quoted on his own companies web site. He went to consult with his manger and offered me a “loyalty bonus” of £45, reducing the cost to £339.

Eventually he had to admit that my best option was to cancel the existing policy and take out the new one.

Same company, some policy, £141 price difference.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

I don’t know what’s worse…

…the pain in my knee or the side effects from the tablets.

The first lot started on Friday – and that was before I had anything to drink ! ! ! Shortly after taking my tablets I felt a bit ‘funny’. It was like I was on the outside looking down on things. Thankfully that only lasted about half an hour after taking the tablets.

That stopped on Sunday afternoon to be replaced by a constant feeling of wanting to throw up. Consequently I hardly ate anything that day.

Monday the sickness was still there and that was joined by bloating, stomach cramps and trapped wind pain.

Tuesday the sickness has gone but has been replaced by diarrhoea and eye wateringly strong smelling farts…

Today I’ve still got diarrhoea but it’s not as bad. The bloating is still there but the stomach cramps and trapped wind pain aren’t as severe.

I’ve had a look at my tablets to see which one of them is causing the side effects and two of them have the above symptoms.

I’ll perceiver for a few more days in the hope that things will eventually settle down.

As for pain relief, they’ve hardly made any difference ! ! !

Marie

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Rattling

Yesterday morning I went to the doctors to get some painkillers for my knee. The pain is getting worse to the point where I simply can’t put up with the discomfort any longer.

I saw a lovely lady doctor, who hasn’t been working at the surgery long, and who must have only been in her twenties. Made me feel so old ! ! !

She’s given me three lots of tablets to take and spent ages explaining in great detail everything there was to know about each tablet, even down to when they were first introduced into the medical world.

To be honest I would have been quite happy if she had just said ‘I’m prescribing you X,Y and Z. Here’s the prescription’.

Don’t get me wrong I was quite happy with the full history of the tablets, but she did bamboozle me a bit, when all I wanted was something to stop the pain.

Given that each prescription item costs £7.10 it was cheaper to buy a pre-paid prescription certificate, especially as I’d only been given a one month supply of tablets, plus the doctor said I had to go back after two weeks for something else if they didn’t work.

I was a little concerned as one of the tablets had a warning on the box saying alcoholic drinks had to be avoided. To my great relief the pharmacist said that I could still drink alcohol but not to excess.

It’s bad enough being in pain, but it would have been too much to go without my wine ! ! !

Marie

Saturday, January 03, 2009

There’s always one

This morning we took down the Christmas decorations.

Nearly every year we usually find a decoration or two that has been hiding in the kitchen dresser or on a bookshelf several weeks after they have been put away in the loft.

This year we double-checked all the usual hiding places and as we found no stray items, John put the decorations in the loft.

After lunch we did some house work and guess what I found – a jar of baubles that had been in the bathroom.

Before you say anything, I know it seems strange to have Christmas decorations in the bathroom. However we had some spare baubles and a nice looking jar and thought it was a shame not to put them to good use. We then realised there was nowhere downstairs for them so decided to put them in the bathroom.

Marie

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy new year…

… and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too.

It’s customary to make New Years resolutions but as I’m not a resolutions person here’s my wish list.

1) I wish to win the jackpot lottery. The Euro would be preferable but I won’t look a gift lottery in the mouth if it’s the normal one.

2) I wish to lose weight.

3) I wish to complete the second draft of my novel and start writing my second one.

4) Santa very kindly brought me lots of books and as I’ve loads of half-read or never got round to reading them books, I wish to spend more time reading.

5) I wish to get back to playing the piano and clarinet.

6) I wish to complete all unfinished bits of needlework and sewing.

7) I wish to blog more as we’ve been pretty poor in keeping things up-to-date.

Marie

PS regular readers to this blog will probably have realised that 1, 2, 3 and 5 come up every year….