Brrrr, it’s been grey and raining and blowing and cold again today. What’s going on? This is mid way through the second month of Spring! The seasons really have shifted; summer hangs on longer too.

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I had to go to a doctor’s appointment in Joondalup Hospital this morning. Normally this takes only 15 minutes, almost all on the freeway, but because they’d warned me that parking at the hospital is very restricted due to building works, I left home at 0630 for an 0815 appointment. I’d slept badly, so I was awake early, so I just decided to go early.

This put me in the thick of early peak hour traffic, and I was pretty annoyed at the attitude of the drivers. The aggression! The speeding! The lane hopping! Why? The traffic is not that heavy, yet drivers, probably the tradesmen in their big 4WD utes, seem to have to overtake and push their way through. At one stage I could see a kilometre ahead and nearly all were in the overtaking lane.

Thank goodness I don’t have to drive in that each day.

As it turned out, I got parking right in front of the hospital main entrance with no trouble.

The appointment was just a routine check of my leukemia, and he didn’t find any problems. He pointed out swellings on the back end of my jaw, which I hadn’t even noticed but seem to be lymph nodes, but he didn’t seem worried about them. My vitamin D is too low, so I need to take extra, but that was all. See him again in January. That’ll be $100 please.

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I’m a bit grumpy about some work I had carried out by a pair of electricians last week. I got them via the RAC tradesman service. All I needed was replacement of five kitchen downlight globes and five LED sparkle lights in the bathroom (I mean, miniature bi-pin lights over the mirror). I had to get these guys out because the lights are offset from where you can get the ladder, and I’m not confident of keeping my balance.

Anyway, one of the replacement lamps (LED G10 bi-pin) went off again just after they’d finished up and left. I managed to wave and whistle and attract their attention and got them back. It seemed to be a bad connection on the pins of this LED lamp over the pantry door. He wiggled it around and it seemed to come good, so they left again.

But it failed again just after they left, so I sent an SMS message to the phone they had used to tell me they were coming. No response. I emailed the RAC at the address they’d used – again, no response.

Now a second lamp has failed in the kitchen. It had been buzzing (the transformer in the ceiling had) and now it’s dead. I hope the transformer hasn’t failed.

What do I have to do to get their attention? Rhetorical question – try again. But my tiny hands are frozen 🙂

I supplied the bi-pin LED mini lights for the bathroom, sourced from Wish.com. In daylight, they looked fine, but I’ve found that at night, they are too dim. I’ve noticed on the packet that they’re only 1,5W. Looks like I’ll have to buy some more, locally, of higher wattage (power). Then I’ll have to install them myself, which will involve placing one foot on the bathroom bench. I’ll let you know. If you hear a scream …

Anyway, the sparkies said the lights are covered by warranty, so I have to try contacting them again.

PS: I’ve had a call from both the sparkies’ boss and the RAC saying they’ve had my complaint and are coming out to talk to me. 6.30pm: a guy (the sparkies’ boss) came and said the kitchen lamps are old and inferior and he recommends they all be replaced with new ones which have a transformer incorporated. He says they’re about the same price as the replacement LEDs that I paid for last week. So that means I’m up for a new set of complete lamps, and their fitting. Grrrr. As I said to the guy, I’ve been in this house for eight years and this is the first time those halogen lamps have failed. And I have those lights on most of the day and evening. I don’t want to have to spend money if I don’t have to.

Anyway, he’s going to do a quote for me. I wait with bated breath.

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I’ve been posting a lot on Facebook lately, sets of images from my files numbering 57,700. Many are not for public viewing but many hundreds or more are. People seem to be appreciating them.

Now they want video too. Can do, but I’ll have to get back into video editing. I have around 2,700 video clips from the 2008 Europe/UK trip alone which have remained unused, unseen. Here goes.

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I’ve got a new USB headset with microphone now, so I hope to start speech-to-text so as to aid my writing.

I’ve been trying to get started on my memoirs for years, but to no avail. Writer’s block, big time. I’ve had an idea – to imagine I’m telling my life story to a friend. As if I were speaking to her. I think that might work and I’m quite excited at the idea. Watch this space.