‘Flu Vaccine

For those who are fed up with me banging on about swine ‘flu and the vaccine please  don’t read on, but for anyone interested, I can recommend watching these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0JqQyl09zQ

They are in Catalonian Spanish but with English subtitles and, unfortunately are a bit longwinded.

In essence, a highly qualified (medically and scientifically) Benedictine nun takes us through the unusual facts surrounding the ‘flu virus and the vaccine.

Here are the most important findings:

1) The H1N1 virus is not new. It has appeared before in previous epidemics.

2) It is a mild virus and the death rate is not as bad as most seasonal ‘flu outbreaks so why the push for a mass vaccination programme?

3) In the Spring a batch of vaccine was sent to the Czech Republic and, by chance, a lab technician tested it on animals. They all died because the vaccine contained a toxic mix of live vaccines: bird ‘flu which is lethal but not very infectious and a non-lethal but highly contagious strain. Baxter admitted this but claimed it was a mistake. If this mistake had not been discovered it is highly likely that a deadly mutation of the virus would have spread by now – thus making the pandemic much more of a reality.

4) The WHO have changed the definition of a pandemic so that a level 6 can be declared even for a mild illness. BUT this gives them powers to control all world governments regarding the way in which they deal with it.

5) The swine ‘flu vaccine could become mandatory but the drug companies are immune from any claims against them for serious side effects or even death caused by it.

6) The vaccine  contains adjuvants that have never been used before and which could stimulate an immune response ten times higher than normal. This could lead to autoimmune diseases.

7)There could be further examples of  ‘accidental mixing of live viruses’ which could lead to many more deaths.

8 In this case, the ‘flu vaccine wouldn’t be any use in combatting a new version of the disease.

9) She asks why these anomolies have not been mentioned by the media.

10) She deliberately avoids getting into the ‘conspiracy theory’ argument  so what she says is based on scientific findings and she gives many references to follow up.

These are the main points as I remember them but it is well worth watching what she has to say before deciding, for yourself and your family, whether or not to say NO.

P.S.  Perhaps this relates to #7?

http://shtf411.com/breaking-news-ukrainian-flu-is-not-just-h1n1-t1066-p9770.html

This and That

Thinking of a topic for this post is proving rather difficult, so I’ll just ramble on a bit and see what happens.

The most interesting news is that we have a visitor from America, a friend of Jay’s, who has finally made it over to see us. She stayed with us in England about ten years ago but I haven’t seen her since. After the first two nights in Paris, where Jay and CC  packed in as much sightseeing as they could,  they all came back here on Saturday to recover, eat and sleep.

Fortunately it was this weekend when the much needed rain came down  but it didn’t spoil any plans.

Bear, who grumped at the thought of someone ‘invading his space’ was far more  charming  than I’ve seen him in years for our first meal together on Saturday but, by Sunday, he had reverted to his old self, refused to eat with us and sat watching telly with the volume at full blast while we ate a lovely meal prepared by Jay and our guest -  carrot soup, followed by salmon in a spicey coconut sauce with basmati rice laced with caramelised onions. For dessert we finished off the chocolate pudding CC had made the day before.

We are trying to think up local recipes for our visitor to taste and Francine, who comes in to help with Bear brought a surprise in her basket this afternoon. It was a joint of boar. Her husband goes hunting and they had shot the animal and divided it up on Saturday.  She gave me instructions for cooking it (slowly with a little white wine but not marinated beforehand) so I’m looking forward to trying it. The Ardennes has the boar as its symbol but it’s not easy to find any meat unless you know a hunter or are on good terms with your butcher. Otherwise you have to ask in advance and then pay through the nose.

The bad news is that the washing machine has packed up AGAIN! iI’s  the third time the spin drying cycle has decided not to work, but, at least, it’s still under guarantee. The only problem is that  even though the engineer is coming out tomorrow morning I know from previous experience that he won’t be able to mend it on the spot; it will take weeks for the necessary part to arrive and I will have to ring up and beg on a daily basis before they arrange to lend me another machine and then they will squeeze it in the laundry room beside the offending object that has let me down.

It looks as though I’ll have to ask my friend Yvette, or my neighbour, Claudine if our visitor can borrow their machine to do her washing, while ours piles up to the ceiling!

We’ve all had strange colds these last few weeks – or rather dry coughs and sore throats that won’t go away. According to the chemist nearly everyone round here has a similar problem. Now, at the risk of being accused of spreading conspiracy theories, I did notice thick white trails in the sky recently.

At first, one could just put it down to normal vapour trails. But have you noticed how they sometimes criss cross and last longer than you’d expect – and also become wider? A little research on Google brought up the information that they sometimes appear when the conditions are not right for vapour trails.

Are they spraying pollutants in the guise of ‘weather experiments’  or such like? What and why are they spraying? Do they have the right to interfere with nature in this way?

It smacks of science gone mad like the recent ‘experiment’ of bombing the moon. Did you see it on the news? Fortunately it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib as their huge explosion kind of became a feeble whimper. But what if they had destabilised the moon in some way? It makes you wonder if they know what they’re doing – or if they do really understand the risk – WHY are they doing it?

Even worse verse

Here’s another poem showing the problems with English pronunciation.

It wasn’t until we started teaching English that CC and I realised just how difficult it is to help foreigners to speak  a language that is so thoroughly UNphonetic with so few rules to hang on to.

 

 

Poem ‘The Chaos’ : Pronunciation and spelling

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain .
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhymes with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, knob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty , library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas .
Sea, idea, Korea , area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough-
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give it up!!!

 And then there are so many strange pronuciations for place names as for example, in Norfolk:

Costessey (Cossey)

Tacolneston (Tackleston)

Wymondham (Windam)

Shotesham (Shotsam)

I’m sure you can add to this list . . . . . . .

Italian Class

The English classes started again this term but, so far, CC and I are off to a rather slow start.

Most of her group are taking late holidays so the most ’students’ she has had amounts to two so far: last week no-one turned up!

My beginners’ group now consists of one lady and two 12 year old girls from last year plus three adult newcomers and two teenagers.

The interesting news is that there’s a new class at the library this term – Italian – given by an Italian photographer who exhibited his wonderful bird pictures in the Summer.

It’s years since I studied Italian and I have to admit I’ve forgotten most of it, so I thought it would be a good idea to go along.

There have been three classes so far (I missed last week because of a bad cold) but we still haven’t progressed beyond going through the pronounciation rules. At least Italian is an entirely phonetic language where every letter or combination has the same sound, but following Guido’s explanations in French with a heavy Italian accent is not always easy and when he writes the French version of the Italian sounds (thanks to his wife) they mean nothing to me.

In the two lessons I’ve attended I’ve probably spoken no more than six isolated words but I will keep going in the hopes that there might be a conversation soon.

In conclusion, I wonder if you have come across this poem which highlights the difficulties of pronouncing English  for foreign learners:

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, it’s said like bed, not bead-
for goodness’ sake don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s doze and rose and lose-
Just look them up- and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart-
Come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I’ll not learn how ’til the day I die.

 

The Anniversary

Yesterday saw a (mostly) pleasant but low key celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary.

I woke up feeling better than I expected due to a bad cold and took Bear his card and present with his coffee. CC laughed that she had been given the task of buying my card for him and his card for me when she went into town. She had chosen one with a bear on the front and I wrote inside:

You can be like a bear with a sore arse, or a cuddly teddy bear. Guess which I prefer. . . .

Happy Anniversary, love S

He had typed (his handwriting is illegible) a somewhat formal message :

Sandy, this is to wish you a Happy Anniversary and thank you for twenty five years,  my love as always. R

Last time we were in town together he had (surprisingly) urged me to think of a present and I chose a plain silver ring as I’m not one for fancy jewellery and he didn’t accept my suggestion of a jumper – which I actually need.

He had also chosen an apron printed with cats from the catalogue of a store in town and asked CC to buy it as a present from the cats, accompanied by another typed message thanking me for looking after them (between the two cards in the photo).

His present was a watch as his old one keeps coming undone and falling off but we had to take it to have some links removed as it was much too big.

We had lunch at the hotel in the village where we go once a week and then we went to the pizzeria in the evening.  However,  neither of us was particularly hungry so, although the food was good, we struggled with just one course.

For our 20th Anniversary we had been for a ‘posh’ meal and stayed at a hotel but conversation had been virtually non-existent. Last night, we did actually talk to each other without arguing and he insisted that he loved me ‘as much as ever’ and that I could ‘have anything I wanted’. (Yes, we had had some alcohol).

I said I just wished everyone could feel more at ease with each other at home as, for example, no-one else feels comfortable coming in the lounge to watch television when he’s there.

“Oh, I don’t mind CC sitting there to watch TV” he said magnanimously, “so long as she doesn’t make a noise; and I just wish she wouldn’t laugh so loudly.”

What can one say. . . . . . . .

Feeling foolish

Imagine the scene: the bedroom lights refused to come on and there was a strange low-pitched buzzing  sound coming from the ‘control panel’  in the garage.

CC and I found the offending switch and left it in the ‘off’ position but that meant that there was no light in the laundry room or Whale’s toilet – and there are no windows in either.

We tried switching it back on and there was no more noise but we decided to play safe and turn it off at night.

When I put it back on in the morning, lo and behold, the bedroom lights came on. However, only one of the four switches would actually operate them.

I rang Daniel, who knows everyone to ask if he could find us a reliable electrician. he came round the next evening, bless him, to look at the problem.

“It looks as though you’ll have to change all the switches” he said, and he called his mate who works for  EDF but does a bit of work ‘au noir’ to help people out.

Monsieur l’electrician came this evening and in a matter of seconds found the problem.

It seems that this double switch, one of which is for the outside light, was stuck. It should rebound each time it is used but it would remain in the ‘on’ or ‘off’ position and cut out all the other switches (each side of the bed and at the doorway).  He made it work but thought it would be better to change it eventually.

So we have light!

But I do feel a bit of an idiot for not understanding a pretty obvious principle.

Thank goodness September is over

It was with great relief that I turned the page on the calendar this morning because September was chock full with medical appointments and incidents including two trips to hospital for Whale, several follow-up examinations for Bear after his week in the diabetes unit  and umpteen physio sessions for Bear and for me.

The bout of ‘flu – or whatever it was – was over by the weekend although Bear milked the opportunity to stay in bed and be waited on until Monday.  Actually, he is no problem as an invalid – not really demanding  at all. He enjoys his own company, watching DVDs, reading or dozing and hardly ever calls me for anything.

October begins with Bear in the Polyclinic for his second cataract operation and there are several more visits to the opthalmologist for Jay and me as well but the month in general looks much ‘quieter’ until Jay’s friend from America comes to stay from the 29th until the middle of November; something we’re looking forward to very much as it’s several years since we’ve seen her.

Since there’s nothing much else to say here’s a link to some amusing newspaper reports: which I hope will make you smile.

Medical matters

Just when I thought September was already full to capacity with medical appointments  Bear and Whale managed a double whammy.

Yesterday Bear went down with ‘flu symptoms. I’m not saying swine ‘flu because it wasn’t that bad. A temperature of 37.7 soon went down to 36.2 but the aches and pains persist and he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed. On the other hand, the nurse said he must eat, even if he is sick afterwards,  to counteract the insulin.  He’s only been sick once (yesterday) and now he is eating happily – but  he only wanted a few chips with his fish so he’s not back to normal by any means. The big problem is that he’s due for a cataract operation next week . . . . . .

Then it was Whale’s turn. I came back from my appointment with the physio  to find him in a panic because his catheter was leaking.  This is the second time in two weeks and it usually results in making his legs stiff so he can hardly move them – also a sign of an infection. I rang the locum but she absolutely refused to change a catheter (not that we have one handy at home).

I asked her if I should try ringing the out patients’ department where the nurses usually do it (every five weeks) because  it’s only these last two occasions when it was changed on the ward and then in casualty when there have been problems.

It may be a coincidence but when the home nurse used to change it  he was always having to go to hospital because of leaks and blockages. The hospital used a different make of catheter but our local chemist couldn’t get hold of them for us and the hospital refused to let us have any from their pharmacy so, eventually, the doctor decided he should have it changed at the hospital every five weeks. This means the cost of an ambulance (about 150 euros) plus an outpatient visit instead of  less than 10 euros if our home nurse did it. We don’t have to pay ourselves but it seems a waste of money for the SECU (roughly the equivalent of the NHS).

Anyway, the nurses at outpatients couldn’t fit him in so I had to dial 15  for medical emergencies after all. I explained the problem and an ambulance arrived within ten minutes. That’s what I call service!

Now, some of you may know that I’m very interested in alternative medicine and I  recently heard of  Hydrogen Peroxide as a  cure and preventative for many diseases. It can be good for boosting the immune system and relieving ‘flu symptoms so I thought it would be a worthwhile investment seeing as we’ve all decided to avoid the new vaccine like the plague!

The 35% Food Grade H2O2 has to be diluted with distilled water so we ordered a contraption that produces a gallon of distilled water in 4 hours. It took a bit of careful reading of instructions and washing of all the bits and pieces before I was able to assemble it and go into production.

Bear stood around offering criticism and advice which I could well do without but, eventually I got it working and yesterday we  started taking a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in 5 fluid ounces of distilled water as explained in the booklet.

I’ll let you know if it alleviates  Bear’s ‘flu symptoms and prevents the rest of us from catching the lurgy.

The front garden

It’s actually difficult to know how much of the ground in front of our house actually belongs to us but most people make an effort to keep the road looking pretty even if we don’t have front gardens as such.  The containers in the picture should have geraniums or other colourful plants during the Summer but I’m afraid I left the heather and pansies from last Winter  until they finally died off.

Thierry replanted them with some greenery which looks much fresher.

He weeded between all stones and tidied up the garden in front of Whale’s bedroom window.  Our neighbour’s son had already given the conifer a haircut but the rest looked much healthier for a ‘good weed’ and the addition of some pansies.  You can see the weeds growing in front of the neighbour’s house. Ours were much worse than this!

There were two rhododendrons hidden behind the conifer and strangled by weeds. Thierry rescued them and put them in front while I put down plastic sheeting  covered in cocoa shells and held in place with logs to try to keep it tidy.

Every time I go in or out of the house I have to pinch myself to realise that this is our ‘garden’ all neat and tidy at last.

 

In answer to Derek’s question (see comments) here is a wider angled photo. We park the old Citroen in the garage and Jay has to keep his car outside.

The Garden is tidied

A few months ago Whale received a letter from  the French  government stating that as he is handicapped he would receive 200 euros worth of  ’cheques emploi  services’  to employ additional help.

This sounded like wonderful news  but when they arrived they bore no ressemblance to the normal  ‘cheques emploi service’ which are used to pay legally for any work done by someone not employed by a business.

After asking one or two French people if they could make sense of the directions on how to to use them I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t being totally thick and, maybe, the government wanted to put people off using their gift. Which, naturally, made me even more determined to find out how the system worked. 

So I asked at the Mairie  and a very friendly member of the council came round and studied the instructions. She scratched her head, read through the notes again and then decided to phone  for assistance.

After a long conversation she told me that my ‘employee’ must sign up with cheques emploi service and  then the ‘borderaux’ (slips which enable you to cash the cheques) woud be sent directly to him or her.

After asking around I found Thierry, who was willing to do 20 hours of gardening in return for this strange method of payment -but he didn’t know what to do either.

He said his aunt had used them so he took all the papers with him last weekend to ask her. It seemed you had to do it online, she said and she wrote down a list of instructions which he brought with him on Tuesday.

Going online resulted in me signing up to fill in the monthly forms by internet – something I’ve resisted doing up till now  but will have to get to grips with it  at last.

When it came to Thierry’s part it clearly stated that he culdn’t sign in without a valid email address. Thierry doesn’t even have a computer so we were back t square one.

“I’ll send the form by post” he finally decided.

I hope we do get this sorted because he’s already done a good few hours and here are the results so far:                                                                          

The vegetable patch has been dug over and sown with mustard seed. Apparently if you dig in the mustard before the Spring it will fertilise the soil and help prevent the weeds from growing. The ‘bush’  in the far corner is horseradish and you may just be able to make out one lone sweetcorn just in front of it. I used two packets of seeds and  of the 3 (yes THREE)  that germinated this is the only one that has survived. I’m thinking of preservng it somehow!

The hedges that our friend planted last year had been sadly neglected but Thierry cleared away the grass and weeds and put cocoa  shells down to keep it tidy, and hopefully weedfree.

These cocoa shells smell strongly of chocolate and CC and I used them in the bed by the garden shed where the weeds come through from next door.

 

Yummy, they made our mouths water but there was no chocolate in the house to eat.

 

There’s a buddleia and two other shrubs planted in the earth and we’ve part buried some boxes to grow herbs . The plastic sheets are meant to stop some of the weeds from invading and the hosepipe takes well-water up to the vegetable garden.

In addition Thierry has weeded the borders by the path and planted some pansies to fill the gaps where the perennials have died.

There isn’t much colour left but here is the last rose of Summer, looking a bit of a sorry sight.

Next stage is to tackle the front of the house.