Guilt ridden days!

Click on picture to enlarge

Yep you got it. This is where I am supposed to be today but due to a number of things (mainly health) we are not going to make it.
We were supposed to make a start on Thursday by going up to stay with Danny and Angela for the weekend with Antonia and Paul's wedding as part of the itinerary but due to a terrible night angina wise and a wife who err's on the side of safety we had to cancel the trip and provisional plans were drawn up to go early Saturday morning?
Well here we are at 0732 and after yet another bad night it seems it is a weekend at home feeling guilty for I know that I am letting people down who are expecting me to be there. I can only apologise to any of them that are reading this, and assure you I did try!
Now is the next problem! Do I ring or message someone or do I just not turn up? I think just not turning up is perhaps the easiest way to go as then I do not have nagging from others who will try to send me on a much bigger guilt trip than I am already on! PERHAPS I WILL GO INTO HIBERNATION FOR THE WEEKEND!
Oh and I do love a wedding, yes even one that is not in a church as it is still doing as the bible says, making that commitment.
I had been waiting for tablets to come through from the specialist to ease the angina, opening the arteries and lessening the need for so many sprays? At last I have started them yesterday and hopefully that is going to ease things until such time as I have the bypass operation. Only time will tell as hopefully the full effect will kick in in a few days (they say 7 - 14)?
Updates to follow no doubt?

When Jesus Takes Glyn Home?

Health issues lately have made me look afresh not so much at my will but at the form of service that I want, and what I would like said when I am not here any longer on this earth!
After all it is a captive audience and I can have said all that I have been trying to get over to them in life!
Here is extracts of a letter that is attached to my will:

When Jesus calls Glyn home!

To Whom It May Concern?

This is what I would like to happen at the time when I am no longer here to tell you?

Firstly I would prefer it if people were told that “Jesus has taken Glyn/Dad home” because I can assure you that I KNOW where I am going!

Instructions For Glyn’s Funeral.

I do not want any black mourning clothes at my funeral (coloured ties please gents) as it is to be a celebration of my life and as far as possible, I want the service to reflect this fact and to be Glorifying to God! All songs are to be in Praise to God and making a joyful noise unto The Lord!

To God Be The Glory, now this is a must please, as it has always been my favourite hymn! Oh for a thousand tongues to sing is another great hymn! I would love also Morte Christie if LMV Choir are there and also Speed Your Journey being hummed by them as my mortal remains are being taken from the church! (if they are there even?)

Psalm 23 is banned as it is a prayer for the living!

A good speaker with balls is needed to be found who is not afraid to teach Biblical TRUTH, not the watered down version that you get from most churches today! Suggest Acts 2:36 to 39 as a jumping off point. (Sam or Ken)

It must be made very plain to those attending that there IS A HEAVEN AND A HELL and that it is the consequence of their sins that is where they are bound if they do not turn their lives over to Jesus! There must be Repentance etc. to follow me to where I am bound! Either that or I will only be seeing them when they are judged and sent to their final resting place?

There are of course other things that are not for the public domain such as post it notes, how to pay for it and the wake etc.

Also I do not want to put folk through it twice so "NO CREMATORIUM SERVICE", I am happy to be delivered to the back door either before or after a service at Bridge Church in celebration of my life! After all am I going to worry about it? Lol.

Hoping it is not needed for a considerable time but with the impending bypass op etc. who knows?

Family Bar-B-Que. 26/08/19

Had it lunch time with Sue, myself, Lindy, Stella, Karis, Joshua, Lainie and finally Andy our lovely neighbour from flat 4 who we jokingly call Sue's boyfriend. He is a lovely man and very easy to get on with.
Sue did a wonderful job of the cooking, she does tend to do a better job than me because she can keep an eye on it all at once whereas I can only keep an eye on one thing at a time being a man? Lol.
Plenty to eat then played some games and by then my early warning system was telling me it was getting nippy! Stella went and got one of the blankets from the floor and put on my head with this result? It was warmer though and saved me going in to get my hat?
By then it was getting on towards tea time and they all sat and nattered indoors and departed around 1830. All in all a very relaxing yet tiring day.
As an afterthought I was quietly thrilled with Karis and Joshua, both their loving kindness, politeness and help. So a special thank you to them.

Ps. I took no pictures today as a kindness to Lindy who was very much still suffering from the effects of her kiss with the pavement! (see previous post).

Lindy's pavement kiss?

Had a phone call last evening from Lindy who was in St. Richards A&E in Chichester!
Well apparently she came out of work and tripped on the pavement causing her to kiss it and none too gently by the look of her face. It seems her nose came off worse which she has broken.
After being dealt with arriving home at 2330.
She now has to be back at Chichester hospital MFU (Maxillofacial Unit) for 0930 this morning to see what the next move is.

I understand that many people tried to help her and a person she works with was cycling past, went home and got her car and took Lindy to the hospital and then went to get Nick from home, which was very nice of her and I trust a bunch of flowers will be on the way to her in the not too distant future?

Perhaps it was providential that Karis and Joshua are here in Cornwall staying with Auntie Stella.

Birmingham Symphony Hall Concert 2020

I am preparing for a male voice choir concert at Birmingham Symphony Hall in October 2020 with other choirs in the Cornish federation which will number some 380 choristers.
This consists of a practice every month at Liskeard and learning a whole range of new songs for which we have been provided with a CD with our individual parts that I was charged to make copies for our individual choir members.
These are the pieces that we are to be singing, some we know and some we don't and not in this order obviously.

1.     Angels

2.     Anthem from chess

3.     An American trilogy

4.     Camborne hill

5.     Deep river

6.     Do you hear the people sing

7.     Home home from the sea

8.     How great thou art

9.     Jesus shall reign

10.Llanfair

11.Love could I only tell thee

12.Rachie

13.Rock Island Line

14.The Lord’s Prayer

15.We rise again

16.With a voice of singing

Launceston Male Voice Choir are arranging to make a weekend of it with a couple more concerts on the way and on the way home. Should be a good time?

A funny ole' day.

Up and about early as Stella and Stacey came to pick up 3 bonsai (with Andy's help) to take to swap for 3 children at Dorchester?
 I do not know who had the better deal of the two?
After a coffee off Stella set on her mission. I think she was late getting there as the rendezvous was 1100 and she never left here until 0925 having to drop Stacey off at home, go to the toilet and then set out? As it takes about 2 hours to get there I am guessing she was late!
I can only guess that everything went well as Lindy rang me last evening to thank me for the bonsai which are in pride of place in her garden and she is looking forward to the challenge of caring for and shaping! Well Robert did say her wiring was to competition standard which Lindy makes sure I do not forget!
Sue and I had a quiet day as she is up to something secretive in her study and so I listened to another opera, in it's entirety, in English. La Traviata by Mozart.
I ended up falling asleep in front of a program I had been looking forward to! Still what do you expect after 2100? That is what iPlayer is for after all! Lol!
Hence writing this.....

23 out of 24?

Well it serves us right for being lazy?

Instead of going out to find some new plates we decided to do it online.
Having been not too good of late and our dinner plates being too big to go in the new compact dishwasher we sent for the ones on the right. 6 place settings of dinner plates, 6 side plates, 6 bowls and 6 weird sort of bowls/plates, or so we ordered.
On arrival we were short one side plate, yes only 5 in the box. What good is that? Anyway Sue contacted Amazon who sent the complaint on to the supplier.
To cut a long story short we are in a bit of a quandry? It is like they are having a bit of trouble believing us? We so far have had to take this picture to prove that we were 1 short? Though what that proves I do not know because we could just have taken one out of the box and told them that it was missing on arrival!!! Lol.
This done we now await developments?
I will update as we go........

Update 19/08 They are to send a tea plate to make up the number.

Redundancy, a lovely feeling?

Or perhaps the day I became redundant?

Having been known as the dishwasher ever since we have lived here we had this beaut plumbed in today which effectively makes me unemployed, but in the nicest possible way!

I look forward to a long and happy acquaintance filling and emptying it with even monotonous regularity.

Long may it reign!

Preparations for holidays? (Medication)

We are planning a three and a half week holiday in Scotland and Lindisfarne shortly calling in on Dea in Derbyshire for one night and staying another night at Perth on the way.
The preparations for this are horrendous under normal circumstances but add in my level of medication it becomes puzzling in its complexity!
 I normally do my medication 4 weeks at a time which is straight forward enough but add in another 4 weeks and a 3 day journey and the fun begins. The 3 day journey to get there means that if I were to take all of the insulin that I need with me it would warm up and spoil!
I duly applied for 8 weeks medication yesterday and not having done it before jumped in the deep end and surmised that if I did not get it right I would hear about it? I sent a second order for Sue's after and that was complicated by the fact that one of her tablets has been cut down from 1 a day to one every 2 days. A further complication was the fact that I needed a separate prescription for 5 vials of insulin to be filled in Scotland?
  About 20 minutes after I pushed send on the order the phone was ringing!!!
A very nice, but confused, young lady from the medical centre wanted to know what I wanted, and after I explained it all once I had to go through it a second time to ensure she had it right in her head (I do not know her but was left wondering if she was blonde by any chance? (and that is a joke))!

Fast forward to this morning.
At 0550 I was logged in to the my medical records checking to see if it had got through ok and it all seems correct.

Now this morning it is just going to leave me to ring the chemist to explain why the extra prescription and hopefully we shall be all done?

Well that is except for having to sort them all into separate compartments for 8 weeks but hey that is simple compared with trying to get them one hopes!!!

Is there such a word as OPERAFEST? If there is I think I am having one! FEEL SORRY FOR SUE?

One of the joys of my life since perhaps my teenage years is music. My problem, or rather my wifes problem is the variety of music I like? Anything before about 1975 and that includes all genre from folk through jazz, classical, opera, operetta and everything country and all in between!

I recently discovered Amazon Music and for a nominal monthly sum I can listen to as much music and in whatever variety and quantity I like! Well to me that is like a red rag to a bull because being a hater of advertisements in any shape or form it means endless music of my choice without a single advert all day and all night woohoo!!!
I can even download it onto my phone and have advertless music of my choice in the car as well.

As I am stuck indoors today because I cannot make any use of my right arm due to having the artery opened up yesterday and it has to heal I am working my way through my favourite operas! NOT JUST THE HIGHLIGHTS EITHER but IN THEIR ENTIRETY! Wonderful Wonderful operatic classical music! What complete JOY!!!!
1st THE MAGIC FLUTE
2nd CARMEN (playing now).
Only problem I have is which one next? LA TRAVIATA, TOSCA, LA BOHEME, DON GIOVANI, THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, the list goes on and on not even mentioning Gilbert and Sullivan, Oh such wonderful music...... Poor long suffering Sue!

My short stay at Derriford!

Tag and the result (in double dutch).

Follow up from last post.

Woke at 0320 and saw 0500 then the next thing I expected was the alarm at 0530 but Sue forgot to set it and so it was 0552 when I next looked at the clock!
So started all behind with the way I had had it planned, still got it all sorted in time and Stella arrived at 0640 to get me to Derriford by 0800.
Oh I did inwardly laugh? Stella had gone her usual way so that she knew it and got lost! So funny but we still arrived at 0730 and then sat about until 0800.

Sue and Stella went off for a McDonalds breakfast and some retail therapy.

Chatting to the nurse Darren I discovered that he had spent the weekend in Trowbridge to attend a party, as his wife is a Trowbridge girl. He stayed at Silver Street Lane and better than that the party that they attended is at the very place that Antonia's wedding is at on the 31st of August!!!! He says it is a lovely venue, so that is something to look forward to. Needless to say, IT IS A SMALL WORLD!

I was first to be admitted as I was first on the list as I had come the furthest, (thank you Lord) scheduled for 0930 as it turned out as we had to sign our lives away at 0900 when we expected to begin.
After 10 or 15 minutes chatting to the staff while they ensured I was comfy so boss man came in and explained the procedure and we started.
25 minutes later and it was all over and I was on my way back to recover and the next one was on his way down. I was made comfortable. 4 patients and 4 nurses, Darren, Vicky (sticky Vicky) Olivia and Anthony by name, quite a good ratio. All staff were very professional, helpful and pleasant. I would even go as far as saying wonderful.
Fed coffee and a bacon sandwich and more coffee and more coffee, and very nice it was as well!
After a couple of hours of obs and letting air out of the wrist tourniquet I was done and just waiting the result.
They told me I should be finished, seen boss man and ready to go by about 1315 so I duely asked Sue and Stella to pick me up then.
Needless to say I was ready but not finished so was delayed but at least it meant that Sue was there when boss man was seen and had some input!
Result is that it looks like I may be having a heart bypass op sometime but that is to be confirmed and it will not be until hopefully after our holiday to Scotland next month.

Sunday 11th, Church, BBQ and Opera, now there is a combination!

Family service at Bridge church this morning run by the holiday club. Very enjoyable for those of good health and healthy with much dancing and singing. L.E.D. band from Oriel Ministries took part with Chris and Nicky singing and my hearing aids in the off position! Standing joke between me and Chris! lol.
After the service there was a Bar-Be-Que and car wash in aid of the young people going to Soul Survivor later in the week. £445 was raised so that will buy an awful lot of ice creams as it is a long way to Peterborough!

Home then for a short nap and then away again to pick up Stella and off to Sterts Theatre Upton Cross for a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute, one of my personal favourites and always good for a laugh!

The Magic Flute was performed by Opera Anywhere which is a small but surprisingly spectacularly good company that I think surprised us all at the performance. Watch out for them near you.
The young lady playing the Second Lady's part had a particularly good voice and goes by the name of Freya Jacklin and is one to look out for? Not often does a voice make me come out in goose bumps as hers did!

Then Home to try to sleep and steele myself for the day tomorrow!

Derriford update.

Had a phone call this morning from Derriford heart clinic to see if I could step up by 1 week and attend for the procedure on Monday 12th August at 0800 instead of the 19th?
Managed to get hold of Stella to see if she could get me there for that time which she can.
Well at least it is over and hopefully done with then and we can start looking forward to our Scotland holiday next month.

Ah but of course we have Antonia's wedding and visit to Wiltshire to look forward to before that!

The mystery that is my second daughter?

Elizabeth by name, she has always been an odd character and that has been exasperated by marrying an even odder one!
They married in 2001 whilst we were living in Saltford and things seemed markedly to change from that point on.
Whereas I had always seemed to get along with Brendan up to then it seemed that when married things went from tentative control to total and he became more standoffish, more remote, more distant! See previous post on this subject.
When we lived in Wales I think Elizabeth actually came to the house in Trevethin once, maybe twice at the most and every other time we had contact it was either we went to their house or met at a neutral setting, venues such as St. Fagans I remember with some fondness.
Since they married it has been very much one-way traffic in that if we want to see them we had to go to them or meet up with them on mutual ground or at family occasions such as funerals or weddings.
At family funerals some time ago (Auntie Bibs and Andrews) and the way we were treated at arms length there and the way that my family were treated as a totally separate entity at Elizabeth's 50th birthday celebrations even to the point of having one bar-be-que for "my family" and one for "Brendan's family and our friends" as though my children are tainted or infected? I decided anyway that enough was enough and I was not prepared to put up with this situation any longer and I told Elizabeth as much which went down like a lead balloon.
I am no longer chasing around after her and if she wants to see me she will need to make an effort and come here to our flat. I know it is beneath her husband to do so but with my failing health and loss of patience with them I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!

Well after a few months on Tuesday I had a phone call from Elizabeth suggesting that she would like to see me. I have suggested she come here to see me but she would not readily agree to that as I presume she has to run it past Brendan so we now wait and see.
I am hoping it is not going to be until after the visit to Derriford as I do not know if my heart will stand the stress at the moment? I guess I can only say this is to be continued!

New Driving Licence!

On Monday I got this through the post which I gratefully received.
Today two days later I got a letter telling me that I will be getting my Driving Licence returned to me within the next 2 weeks and if I do not receive it I am to start making enquiries?
Mysterious!

Government departments never cease to amaze!

What a day! A puzzling story and Derriford pre-op.

Off to Derriford for pre-op assessment at 1430 but first a puzzling story?

Don't you just love it when you spend several days doing a jigsaw and there is a piece missing!!!

I spent several days searching for the little bleeder, but to no avail. All around the floor, under the table, under the suite, it was so unusual for Sharon and Syd to give us a puzzle with a piece missing and it not to be marked as such!

As it was an edge it was quite apparent from the start that it was not there?

When finished I thought "well I will just get it packed away and then start the other one that is in the same box". So I broke it up while Sue went to get the bag that I keep the spares in. 

I took the plastic bag out to put the pieces away and lo and behold stuck to the sellotape along the opening was the missing edge, laughing at me!!!!

There has to be a moral to this tale and when I think of it I will add it? Lol.

If you can think of one comments at the bottom please?

So an early lunch then set off at 1300 for Derriford in Plymouth to find a new unit called Peninsula Heart Clinic. It had only just opened, in fact the official opening was 1100 this morning!

Having searched for 10 or 15 minutes for parking duly arriving at department at 1415 for 1430 appointment.

Promptly seen before time at 1425 and had a very pleasant time, as much as one can in a hospital! 

All passed ok anyway and appointment made for the actual procedure on Monday 19th August 2019 at 1200 noon. (I point blank refuse to write 1200pm as 1200 noon is neither am or pm! Ok readers it is just one of my things).

In 2004 when I had a similar procedure in Bristol Royal Infirmary after my heart attack they went via the groin, now it is done through the wrist and is much nicer? If invasive surgery can be nice?We will see?

Report to follow on the 19th-ish?

A busy ole Saturday it was too!

Up at the normal time but then off to the men's breakfast at Bridge Church.

Visit To Lindy and Co!

Lindy pulled the face as Lainie photobombed it!

 No sooner back from that and it is off to "the middle of nowhere" where the Hornby family are staying on holiday for lunch and fun.

As you can see they had a pool and I just love this picture of Lindy and Lainie so it had to be added!

Sue and I stayed until mid afternoon then it was all getting too noisy in the pool so we took our leave.

It was lovely seeing them all and I WILL get a photo of the four of them together at some point?

 After this it was home for a relaxing evening and snooze!

It is finished!

On the 1st of October 2018 I started trying to read the Bible in a year.
Well as it turned out I really enjoyed the challenge so much that here we are the 1st of August 2019 and I have finished it!
I will not say I was not challenged at times in some books of the old testament when you have "lists and laws"!
I have made it in 305 days shaving some 60 days off the year (I would have done it in 300 but forgot to take the plan with me on a visit to Milton Keynes).
My problem is now, what do I do with the first 30 to 45 minutes when I get up?

Mmm now I got this study book from the bookshop recently and I think it may keep me occupied for a while?
I have always struggled a bit to get my head round Hebrews and Revelation so hopefully it will be very illuminating!

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