Eating rice. A nice brown rice - wild rice combination. There's this curious round one. Ugh. It's not rice.
Thanks to the 'net, I now know how many worms and fly eggs are in things. I will never eat again.
One way to at least ensure the extra protein is dead is to freeze the rice when you get in home from the shops. Also washing it before cooking helps because you can then check for livestock. I do this with the dried soup mix I use.
I think the cooking will kill things deader than freezing will.
TICTH the stupid, dark floater that has appeared in my left eye. I was having a perfectly nice day yesterday, enjoying the apple country with a friend, when the damned thing showed up like a dusty cobweb. This morning it continues to taunt me.
Is there/are you receiving treatment for this condition?
I'm seeing my doctor on a regular appointment tomorrow, but WebMD said most people just get used to them. If you develop a bunch of them they try to find out if there is an underlying problem like a detaching retina or diabetic damage. If your eye becomes so full of them that vision is a problem, an eye surgeon can poke a hole in the orb, remove the fluid and the floaters, and replace the fluid with artificial liquid which the body replaces over time with the real stuff..
I have lots of floaters, as I’m very short sighted. I don’t know if this is the same for everyone, but I just kind of get used to them and then they don’t bother me. I had a huge new one in my right eye a couple of years ago and at first it was really getting in the way and now I don’t notice it. I always see them way more first thing on a summer morning, when the sun is streaming through my window and I haven’t yet put my glasses on, so my eyes are just seeing unfocused brightness - then I see all the floater blobs, and they move in a slow, dreamy way across my vision, and it’s kind of like looking at fish in an aquarium.
I have a floater now and then and have mistaken them for a gnat flying by. So I have looked silly waving my hand in front of my face. Thankfully I did it at home for only Mr Image to see.
If it appeared suddenly and is cobwebby, please see an ophthalmologist. IANAD, but it could be a retinal issue that needs to be checked out. I speak from experience. Good luck!
Respiratory syncitial virus, which has tormented me for over a month. It causes the trachea to spasm, leaving me breathless, sometimes just from taking a few steps.
I'm with Pigwidgeon on cobwebby floaters - could be the sign of a bleed at the back of the eye, speaking from personal experience.
TICTH trains and delays and vehicles that hit railway bridges causing delays to trains. I was supposed to be travelling from Manchester to Aviemore to meet up with my wife and daughters who are up there on holiday (I had to stay behind to take a funeral), with a change of trains at Edinburgh. Except, because a vehicle hit a railway bridge, my first train was late, meaning I missed my connection - which was the train of the day. Meaning I’ve had to fork out £100 for a room for the night in Edinburgh (finding a room was hard enough) and I won’t see my family until later tomorrow.
ecause a vehicle hit a railway bridge, my first train was late, meaning I missed my connection - which was the train of the day. Meaning I’ve had to fork out £100 for a room for the night in Edinburgh (finding a room was hard enough) and I won’t see my family until later tomorrow.
Not a happy bunny...
There's nothing that can be done about your loss of time with your family, but you may well be able to reclaim the costs that you have incurred to complete your journey.
Start from the website of the train company you were using during the delay (presumably TPE or Virgin), find their page about Delay Repay, and email them. Don't use the webform as that's designed for simple delays (one train company, no overnight issues), but send an email including pictures of your train tickets and hotel bill, tell them how late you were arriving at Aviemore, and tell them the amount of costs you want back.
You won't make Aviemore until many hours after you were due there, so you are certainly due your entire rail fare back. They might quibble about the hotel cost, but given that they should have been looking after you so that you weren't stranded (if you miss the last train through the railway's fault they are meant to make arrangements (taxi or bus) for you to complete your journey or put you up overnight) it's reasonable to ask them to reimburse your costs.
But there are lots of trains from Edinburgh to Aviemore. About every 2 hours. Some change at Perth (where the bridge was hit) but some don't. And the line was only closed for a short time to check the bridge was OK - which it was - the cars on the car transporter (new cars, range Rovers) were not! Maybe you had a ticket only valid on the one train? Did you ask at Waverley if in the circs it could be used on a later service? - they are usually pretty good about that. Of course, what used to be Virgin is pretty poor at customer relations.
@Mr Smiff You should also be able to claim for the overnight stay too. I was told I could claim by the Virgin desk at Glasgow when one of the storms that hit the Lake District in quick succession a few years ago (Desmond, Eva and Frank) were affecting the west coast line and the indicator boards at Glasgow Central were showing all trains to London with severe delays. As I had an incredibly cheap ticket (under £20) and stayed in the Youth Hostel (about £30), I didn't claim.
For future reference, you can also travel to Aviemore overnight, from London, Caledonian Sleeper - I tend to use the seats because they/I'm cheap. When I've priced up the cost of using up a day of my holiday allocation plus overnight accommodation, I reckon I do better travelling overnight to Scotland.
(Sadly the MegaBus Gold service is no longer because that was a sleeper coach from London to Glasgow/Edinburgh)
Caledonian Sleeper will shortly be getting some swanky new carriages: http://newtrains.sleeper.scot/. However I think I'm right in saying that prices will rise , although cheaper seated accommodation will still be available.
It was some years ago but I was travelling from Newport to Lincoln on a Friday afternoon and everything went wrong between Birmingham and Nottingham (an "incident" on top of diversions): so wrong in fact that I got to Nottingham over three hours late and missed the last train to Lincoln. As there was no way to get there that day I had a taxi to myself, all the way.
I see from that link that the service is operated by Serco; after the total bollocks they made of the (heavily-subsidised) Stromness/Scrabster ferry service to Orkney several years ago, I wouldn't touch them with a barge-pole.
They sent the main ferry away for several months for a refit without providing a replacement, and if the locally-owned Pentland Ferries (who run a shorter route from the other end of Orkney) hadn't stepped in and done extra runs, the islands would have had no ferry service at all.
[/tangent]
But there are lots of trains from Edinburgh to Aviemore. About every 2 hours. Some change at Perth (where the bridge was hit) but some don't. And the line was only closed for a short time to check the bridge was OK - which it was - the cars on the car transporter (new cars, range Rovers) were not! Maybe you had a ticket only valid on the one train? Did you ask at Waverley if in the circs it could be used on a later service? - they are usually pretty good about that. Of course, what used to be Virgin is pretty poor at customer relations.
The problem was the train I missed to Aviemore was the last one of the day (I checked several times to make sure!). And though the delay at Preston wasn't too long, we were already slightly late; plus we were v slow going into Edinburgh, which is the point when we actually missed the Aviemore train.
And if I'd had my wits about me, I'd have done as you suggested at Edinburgh - but I was hot, bothered and not thinking straight by that point. Lessons learned for next time...
Climacus, there is a daylight train running from your new home to Auckland, but they seem to have stopped the overnight one. I travelled on it several times in the past and really enjoyed it.
Or you can travel to Wellington, which , from memory, is a couple of hours.
MS and pressure areas- in this case, literally a pain in the backside. (Sorry for tmi)
Oh yes, and cinemas which play 40 minutes of adverts before the film you want to see.
Eczema. The bases of three fingers are cracking up and itching like hell. And I've tiny dry red patches appearing up my arms. If this littke bit can itch and hurt like this... well, God help those who have it badly
@Sandemaniac as someone who's suffered from eczema all my life, I feel your pain (or itching). Even just a small patch of it can be nasty, itching and hurting like crazy, just like you say. And the worst of it is that the one thing that seems to relieve the discomfort - scratching - is the one thing you shouldn't do as it just makes the broken skin worse.
So I hope it clears up or you get it sorted soon - I know what you're going through!
I, too, occasionally suffer from eczema, and had it quite badly when a child (and in my teens).
IANAD, but I've found Eumovate cream to be a useful relief for those nasty little bits between the fingers, or the odd spot elsewhere. It's available over-the-counter (well, in the UK, anyway), but MUST be used with caution. It's also rather expensive, but at least you may not need to apply too much at a time!
Like BF, IANAD, but Mr S has had eczema since childhood and I get it on my hands when stressed (oddly enough, that's how I know how stressed I am). Also, The Intrepid Grandson suffers badly with it. We all use Childs Farm baby moisturiser, you can buy it at B**ts and it isn't even expensive.
Pills that feel the size of footballs when trying to swallow them, that say do not break in two.
Called pharmacy to see if there was another smaller brand? No. Do they come in a smaller dose so I would take two? No. Graven Image choking her way to wellness.
Thanks Lamb Chopped, the applesauce helped. Reminds me of the the large vitamins they wanted to take when pregnant and having morning sickness. I gave them to Mr Image to take instead. Baby was born healthy. : )
Low-level viruses. Today I have a sore throat and runny nose, like I've had every 7-10 days for weeks. Not enough to be properly ill, but enough to want to pull up the drawbridge and hibernate. But no, life goes on in its yappy fashion, demanding attention.
Sometimes, nothing sucks like small inconveniences.
Management. Projects. Deadlines. Agreements made by non-techies who have no insight into what they've agreed to. Change Control. Filling in forms. All the shit that gets in the way of actually doing stuff. Work. Bollocks. If I wanted this crap or had any aptitude for it I'd have gone into management.
My laptop. Or possibly our wifi. Or perhaps both. Surely to goodness, even in a stone cottage, it should not be possible to be happily accessing the internet one moment, only for the connection to be lost and the laptop utterly refuse to connect, even with an ethernet cable plugged into the back of the router?! :scream:
New Brunswick Power. Although we got off very lightly in the storm this past weekend (we only had a power cut that lasted half an hour on Saturday evening), there are thousands of people who still haven't got power, and might not get it back until Wednesday.
Surely the electricity providers should have the staff and infrastructure to deal with the aftermath of a few hours of high winds?
British Telecom, who, whilst working on a neighbour's landline, have managed to Cut Me Off completely.
How am I posting on SoF, I hear you ask? By hieing me to PC W***d, and buying a nice new Dongle With Luminous Lights (shades of Edward Lear's Dong With A Luminous Nose).
A nice young man from BT assures me that my service will be resumed by midnight tonight (I won't stay up to see if he's right), but in the meantime I am enjoying a certain freedom (at a modest cost)....
TICTH my (early) pension provider for sending me application forms with the wrong amount on them so that I have to fill them in and send them again, and Canada Post for being a bit rubbish, so the whole thing will probably take another month ...
The cloud does, however, have a silver lining: they'd left a bit out of my lump sum, which will now be a bigger lump.
Nuff said indeed. Shingles comes straight from Satan and deserves to go straight back.
Did you catch it early enough that you could get anti-viral tablets? I was lucky that way - although the rash was very unpleasant and lasted for a long time, I didn't really feel particularly ill, just very tired.
Comments
I think the cooking will kill things deader than freezing will.
Well, I now possess the requisite Flat Cap....
I'm seeing my doctor on a regular appointment tomorrow, but WebMD said most people just get used to them. If you develop a bunch of them they try to find out if there is an underlying problem like a detaching retina or diabetic damage. If your eye becomes so full of them that vision is a problem, an eye surgeon can poke a hole in the orb, remove the fluid and the floaters, and replace the fluid with artificial liquid which the body replaces over time with the real stuff..
Eek!
I'm with Pigwidgeon on cobwebby floaters - could be the sign of a bleed at the back of the eye, speaking from personal experience.
Not a happy bunny...
There's nothing that can be done about your loss of time with your family, but you may well be able to reclaim the costs that you have incurred to complete your journey.
Start from the website of the train company you were using during the delay (presumably TPE or Virgin), find their page about Delay Repay, and email them. Don't use the webform as that's designed for simple delays (one train company, no overnight issues), but send an email including pictures of your train tickets and hotel bill, tell them how late you were arriving at Aviemore, and tell them the amount of costs you want back.
You won't make Aviemore until many hours after you were due there, so you are certainly due your entire rail fare back. They might quibble about the hotel cost, but given that they should have been looking after you so that you weren't stranded (if you miss the last train through the railway's fault they are meant to make arrangements (taxi or bus) for you to complete your journey or put you up overnight) it's reasonable to ask them to reimburse your costs.
For future reference, you can also travel to Aviemore overnight, from London, Caledonian Sleeper - I tend to use the seats because they/I'm cheap. When I've priced up the cost of using up a day of my holiday allocation plus overnight accommodation, I reckon I do better travelling overnight to Scotland.
(Sadly the MegaBus Gold service is no longer because that was a sleeper coach from London to Glasgow/Edinburgh)
Hope you get something for your troubles, Mr Smiff.
They sent the main ferry away for several months for a refit without providing a replacement, and if the locally-owned Pentland Ferries (who run a shorter route from the other end of Orkney) hadn't stepped in and done extra runs, the islands would have had no ferry service at all.
[/tangent]
The problem was the train I missed to Aviemore was the last one of the day (I checked several times to make sure!). And though the delay at Preston wasn't too long, we were already slightly late; plus we were v slow going into Edinburgh, which is the point when we actually missed the Aviemore train.
And if I'd had my wits about me, I'd have done as you suggested at Edinburgh - but I was hot, bothered and not thinking straight by that point. Lessons learned for next time...
[didn't mute quick enough and the song is in my head now
Ian,
who has fond memories of a German night train from Berlin to Munich many years ago....
Or you can travel to Wellington, which , from memory, is a couple of hours.
Thanks, Huia.
Oh yes, and cinemas which play 40 minutes of adverts before the film you want to see.
AG
So I hope it clears up or you get it sorted soon - I know what you're going through!
IANAD, but I've found Eumovate cream to be a useful relief for those nasty little bits between the fingers, or the odd spot elsewhere. It's available over-the-counter (well, in the UK, anyway), but MUST be used with caution. It's also rather expensive, but at least you may not need to apply too much at a time!
Once again, I am Not a Doctor.....
YMMV but we find it very useful...
Called pharmacy to see if there was another smaller brand? No. Do they come in a smaller dose so I would take two? No. Graven Image choking her way to wellness.
Sometimes, nothing sucks like small inconveniences.
Over my dead body
The Irate Mrs S
Surely the electricity providers should have the staff and infrastructure to deal with the aftermath of a few hours of high winds?
How am I posting on SoF, I hear you ask? By hieing me to PC W***d, and buying a nice new Dongle With Luminous Lights (shades of Edward Lear's Dong With A Luminous Nose).
A nice young man from BT assures me that my service will be resumed by midnight tonight (I won't stay up to see if he's right), but in the meantime I am enjoying a certain freedom (at a modest cost)....
However, a nice young lady has booked an engineer to wait on me between 1pm and 6pm tomorrow (Saturday), so I live, still, in hope.
Meanwhile, the Delightful Dongle of Mister Vo Dah Fone continues to keep the Palace in contact with the Outside World (well, eBay, anyway).
The cloud does, however, have a silver lining: they'd left a bit out of my lump sum, which will now be a bigger lump.
Did you catch it early enough that you could get anti-viral tablets? I was lucky that way - although the rash was very unpleasant and lasted for a long time, I didn't really feel particularly ill, just very tired.
I do hope you get over it soon.