OneGuyFromBarlick

I don't think there are any of them to be foraged around Barlick Tiz. Gathering from the hedgerows is fine of course if you know what you are doing. We tend not to collect from the side of metalled roads and lanes, green lanes are much better and less likely to have contaminants, canal corridor is useful as well as most areas are left wild and can produce a lot of fruit.

As an aside, the fruit from the Medlar tree that Liz refers to above is also known colloquially as "dogs arse" apparently it's a bit of a look alike.

Oh my goodness. Sounds disgusting.
You have put me right off.

See for yourself Maz, here is the Wiki: Medlar (Mespilus germanica)

Back on topic, I continue to mend up, tonsils are exhibiting the nice pink glow that Dr Flemming's magic pills instils in them. The oversized left is heading back to balance with the right. Both still enlarged but heading in the right direction. I can swallow a lot easier now but still detect a little pain at the left probably due to the receding abscess hiding at that side. The ant-inflammatory painkillers are doing a good job there. I have made a note to go and see the nurse. I think it will be a good idea to get my ears syringed after I am clear of this infection.

It's a long time since I have had any bother but the left ear's (notice a pattern here) self cleaning mechanism seems to be a bit crook. Right ear seems to deal with itself but the left does not seem to self lubricate the same. I'll start shoving some oil in before I go and see the nurse.

A few years ago I had an episode with what originally presented as earache, went to docs but he could find no ear infection so he sent me to the dentist he could not find anything either from prodding around in my mouth so he sent me to the hospital for an orbital dental x-ray. That comes out as a full picture of your upper and lower cranium, the source of my pain was pretty obvious from that, a nasty sinus infection so back to the docs. He put me on some little red antibiotics that it turned out did not agree with me they impacted my optic nerves which upset my balance so much I could not stand. Eventually sorted but a good example of how everything in your head is interlinked, hence the ENT specialists of this world.

From my point of view it looks like I have some dodgy plumbing at the left hand side, the sinus infection was just on the left as well. So dodgy ear, nose and throat all providing the problems at that side over the years. First onset of any of the previous conditions not until my late 40's so consider myself quite lucky.

I am no stranger to dodgy sinuses. I had an interesting conversation with the ENT man at Skipton once and he told me that the root of the problem was that our sinuses were designed to drain when we walked on all fours, standing up was the worse thing we could do for them. In the old days they had a simple procedure, push a spike up your nose and crack a hole in the bone at the bottom of the sinus, good drainage then! But he said this was not favoured these days. Over the years I've found that onions and garlic help keep them clear and that chewing gum, singing and orgasm can help them unload.....Go to it Kid!

Started with a sore throat, sneezes and shivers yesterday morning. No problem with my sinuses, must be all the onions & garlic (and singing ).

Nothing wrong with my sinuses either but the abscess continues to mend. Only a very slight feeling of tightness at the left hand side of my throat now. No real soreness when I swallow so I reckon just another day on the anti-inflammatory tabs. Dr Flemming's magic pills will be taken to completion of course. I'm very glad they still work for me.

Hmm, a long lecture yesterday followed by the signing of many consent forms (3 I think) and the collection of lots of booklets before the blood tests.

9 tubes! Glad they're not repeating tomorrow.

It was, however, nice to be in an environment where care was the top priority. Real, touchy feely, empathy

The French for the medlar is 'cul de chien', which is indeed dog's arse. In old English, it was 'Opnaerse' - much the same! The French don't hold back on these things - they call the dandylion 'pissenlit' ('wet the bed' - it's notorious for promoting a jimmy-riddle). Mind you, our dandylion's from the French 'Dents de Lion'.

I just bottled the sloe gin from last year at the weekend - a good brew and a litre and half's worth. We get the sloes from the Wirral Way which is the old railway line - apparently sloes are commonly found on these. Are their sloes on the old line round Barlick?

I like foraging and a hedgrow jelly is a wondrous and very healthy thing. It'll soon be wild garlic time - loads of that at Thornton there, we come over specially. Janet's Fosse is a prettier place to grab this though - I half expect to see an elf.

I think it was my dad who used to say there were wild strawberries round Paythorne Way......

Sorry for strolling off topic.

Richard Broughton

Richard, lots of wild garlic in the wood on the Paythorne Road out of Gisburn just before you get to the old kennels. I used to pick up Jersey milk from a farm on Cam Lane in Thornton. The cattle got into the old quarry and his milk tainted all out Channel Island milk at the dairy that day because Jack the tipper had a cold and missed the contamination. We tried everything with it, separated it and churned the cream into butter but it was still tainted. In the end we sent it to Nestles at Ashby to be used in making chocolate! Too much fish meal in animal food can have the same effect on milk and eggs. Long term it can taint the meat.

Bruff wrote:The French for the medlar is 'cul de chien', which is indeed dog's arse.

I think I'll label my medlar jelly "cul de chien jelly" this year.

Stanley wrote:In the end we sent it to Nestles at Ashby to be used in making chocolate!

I suspect they would have made dried milk from it rather than chocolate - the drying process would have evaporated off the sulphur compounds that give the garlic flavour.

Only 5 minutes prodding, rather than the letter stating 3-4 hours

Good to hear you are not being pulled thru the mill Tardis, they sound efficient and a bit of compassion goes a long way.

Tiz, hardly! It was butter by the time it got to them.

Saw the consultant yesterday regarding my cataracts - he took a scan of my right eye, in which I have no vision, but everything is Ok apart from the cataract/ He said there is a 1 in 20 chance something can go wrong but in my case in that eye it is 1 in 8 !! He asked which eye I wanted doing first , I told him my right eye or if he did the left one first I would be blind until it settled down!!

Moh, they gave me a long list of all the terrible things that can go wrong but they have to do this to cover themselves. If it's lens replacement you will have adequate vision immediately in that eye after the operation and I assume they will be aiming for good long distance vision, if not, ask for that! The sight in they eye improves very quickly as it settles down. Don't lose any sleep about it, you are on the table for under 15 minutes, there is no pain and all you have to do is lie perfectly still. I was naturally a bit bothered about the first one but found there was no need. I couldn't wait to get back in for the second! I didn't even have any discomfort during the healing period. The biggest bugbear was putting the eye drops in four times a day for three weeks! Good luck with it, I suspect you will be delighted!

Thank you for that Stan;ey x x

I remember how useful it was to me here on the site when other people told me the same thing. Look out for fighter pilot Moh!

Funny how you slowly get into bad habits. I realised a couple of weeks ago that I was getting unusual pains every now and again, particularly in my back. I had a think and stopped taking a vitamin pill each day, a habit I had slipped into just because they were there. It seems to have done the trick, the pains have gone. Perhaps I was getting too much of one of the ingredients and God knows I eat a varied diet and all the right things. So, I shall take just one a week as an insurance policy!
My eyes have settled down now and I found that I was missing the ability to take my glasses off and see things clearly at very close range. Very useful for everything from cutting your fingernails to reading the scales on measuring instruments in the shed. So I bit the bullet and asked the optician to make me a set of readers for close vision. (He told me they would be 'stronger'. I think I had realised that!)

When you go to collect them make sure they really do what you want. It's like cameras, when working in close-up there is less depth of focus so the lenses in your glasses need to be made for as close as possible to the focal plane you use most. When I'm at the optician they always ask me to read fine print from a card to check that they've got the setting right. But they want me to hold the card up in front of my eyes and I have to tell them that I normally don't read text at that distance - it's usually either further away on a screen or further away on my knee when I'm sitting down. Eventually they seem to have got the idea!

Tiz, I think you hit the nail on the head when you mention depth of focus. I suspect that the replacement lens don't give me the same latitude I had with my own and I made the mistake of expecting that the single vision lens which was ideal for the screen would have enough depth to cover reading as well. I was wrong and have to hold the book at the same distance as the screen for perfect vision. OK with reasonable sized type but a problem with fine print or the tiny divisions on measuring instrument scales. Perhaps I should have rethought my antipathy towards varilux lens......

Probably not, I find that my Varilux lenses are only good for medium to distant use. I wear them for everything that's not close up and, when I don't have readers with me, have to make do with them for close up (or take them off for very close up). But they're no use for me for reading or computer screen work. The so-called close up part of the Varilux lens just isn't close up enough for me and I have to get a pair of specs with ordinary lenses specifically for reading and computers. Varilux are also restrictive and you have to get your head aligned correctly or the beginning and end of text lines are out of focus.

I have got my pre-op date - Sunday 16th march. Do they cover up the eye that they do? If so it will be necessary for me to have the right one done first although that is normally the worst eye. If not it will be better to have the left hand one done first.

Hope it goes well

Moh, they stick a transparent eye guard on immediately after the operation and you have to wear it at night for the first five days to guard against accidentally damaging the eye while you are sleeping but you don't need to wear it during the day. So, you'll need a minder to get you home on the day of the op because you can't see clearly through the patch but after that you'll be OK. All you have to do after that is keep up with the eye drops and if your eye gets crusty (they water quite a lot for a while) wash it with the saline fluid they'll give you or plain tap water when that runs out. No discomfort from the incision.... You'll be fine!