| Last Week |
Early shift starts today - the 6 a.m. start - ugh! And the shelves are full. Of course, the librarians feel that they aren't doing their job unless they load up the in shelves - which they can do faster than we can clear them. It's a bit demoralising. But 'twas ever thus. Although the weight of line feeds is such that we lose the afternoon and early evening to satellite offerings. And there's an 12th channel to originate, starting next month, plus a rumoured two more early next year. Where we'll find the machine time to do all these I do not know.
More of the same.
Mailcall tonight yielded 69 messages, 50 of them rejected by rule, of the 19 survivors (2 of which were list mail) 1 was valid. More pharmaceuticals. And I'm still waiting for an e-mail from Sarah, allegedly sent on Friday, which contains information for a piece of Jenny coursework that needed handed in yesterday. There are reports (particularly on the ADSL Guide website forums) that Demon's mailservers (in particular) are poorly managed. I've not noticed this until now - assuming, of course, that the e-mail was actually sent.
Overtime today, another early shift. And a 'bitty' day it was. Between getting a refeed (for pay, because it was a foul-up at our end) from the States, line feeds of promos, a stint in Transmission, followed by some 'tapes and breaks', I was busy all day. It seemed like I didn't get much done, but there were a lot of small, time-consuming things - and they do add up.
Still, I did get the 'phone call at work about residential care for Mum. And the list of care homes arrived by post. I was expecting higher charges for this, but Mum can afford it, from income. There are several homes within a couple of miles of the flat, so she won't need to leave her friends - assuming, of course, that the homes are comfortable, and well-run. Which is an open question, these days - one hears horror stories about poorly-run (or perhaps poorly monitored) care homes. There are two hurdles to this - first, find a home Mum likes, and second, convince her that it's for her comfort and safety. Assuming we can surmount those, we'll keep the flat for my use when I visit - which will continue to be fortnightly, as now.
Tonight's mailcall: 53 messages, 34 rejected by rule, of the 19 that came past the filters (of which 1 was list mail), 2 (1 list) were valid.
More 'phone conversations with Swansea Social Services. What happens now is very much up to me, it seems, as the Council will fall in with my wishes. I'll have to arrange a face-to-face with the people down in Wales, and that soon, to sort out the way forward. One thing is fairly certain - Mum can't go on as she is, the daily visits are insufficient. And this is fairly urgent, too, or everything I've said on the matter will become moot.
Tonight's mail call: 57 messages, 40 rejected by rule, of the 17 survivors (of which 1 was list mail), 2 were valid.
In the matter of spam, a thought occurs to me - most (if not all) spam is HTML (or at least multi-part/MIME) Maybe I can filter on that? Such filtering will involve getting the message bodies as well as the headers, but I'm not limited by data rate or quantity. I may have to white-list a few people who insist on sending HTML, but that isn't a major problem.
Two more busy days - the shelves are getting no emptier.
Sarah is down from Uni. for the weekend, not that I've seen much of her. She's come to collect the contents of a cardboard box that's been cluttering up the hallway since she went away for her 3rd year - and most of it isn't even hers (nor yet Alan's)
Katy is helping with another Duke of Edinburgh group who are doing their walk in the Brecon Beacons this weekend, so she's disappeared until Sunday, Sarah has gone out with a school-friend, so Jane, Jenny and I had a takeaway Chinese. And very nice too, complete with a bottle of wine for the adults.
Of course, just when everything seemed rosy (or relatively so) I got the 'phone call from Mum's visiting carer. Mum has had a fall, so an ambulance has been called, and she's gone to Morriston Hospital. This is not good.
Midnight: Mum has broken her right hip. The hospital will operate tomorrow, to insert appropriate metalwork to mechanically join the broken bones, or at worst to do a partial hip replacement. They don't know yet. I've just got off the 'phone with the doctor in the Casualty department, who described the problem in layman's terms - pretty much as I've summarised above. There's always a risk with procedures like this, of course, and it'll be made worse by Mum's bronchitis. She's also confused - again. I'll have to go down to sort out a residential home - she can't stay in the flat, now.
But not tonight - it's too late, and besides I've had two glasses of wine. Tomorrow. I'll take leave, and drive straight down as soon as I'm released
So I did, and I'm typing this at the flat, at about 11 p.m., having got here about 5 p.m.
The agency and the hospital were very helpful, and I'll go to visit Mum tomorrow. I'll take Olwen (Mum's friend) who has been a rock of support.
But before I do any of that tomorrow, I'll have to speak to the Social Services, and the local residential care homes (there are two within a mile of the flat, plus several others an easy drive away) about procedures and vacancies.
And Jane is going to have to drive Hopalong to the garage to get his brakes fixed - with two babies and a teenager in tow. I'd have done the garage run were it not for this problem - that's why it was booked this way.
And Mum came through the operation OK. She's back on the ward, resting 'comfortably' as the medical jargon has it.
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