NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE JAGS

Autumn is upon us and with it comes flu season. This year, being aged 65, I was offered the NHS flu vaccine. There are posters up everywhere telling people that if they are of a certain age or disposition (pregnant mothers etc) go and get your flu jab.

Two things:
[1] In Britain they call a vaccination a "jab" or - equally common - a "jag". It's a good word ... much better than "injection"!

Knowing the importance and effectiveness of vaccination, I wouldn't dream of not taking up the offer.

[2] This is all free. Over the past 6-8 weeks there was a lot in the UK media about USA demonstrations - a great deal of hysteria! - over the proposals to have "free" health care. (Nothing is free, of course; it is paid for by our taxes.) People who live in a culture of "national health service", i.e. free health care for all, find it incomprehensible that people would actually NOT want this coverage.

So ... nothing for it ... I don't have to agonize over how much it is going to cost me ... I just turn up at the doctor's office, get handed a number and go and sit in the queue. There were 6 staff on the day I went and it all went like clock-work. In fact, I ended up getting 2 jags: one for flu and one for pneumococcus infection.

Done. I did have a sore upper arm for about 3 days but that was it. I am here to report that the National Health Service is alive and well; I cannot sing its praises enough!

QUARK SOLUTION - FILE ERROR 39

I use a desk-top publishing software package called QuarkXpress. I use it to produce a yachting publication (and other minor bits and pieces). It is quite sophisticated but frankly can be flakey. That is the bad news. The good news is that I am learning that if I have trouble try Google for a solution. The hard part is getting the right terminology. I keep telling myself that the answer will be there somewhere, just keep googling (that way one learns the lingo which makes all the difference)!

Well, I solved a problem today and because I couldn't find the exact answer on Google I thought I would post the problem with its solution here.

Problem: Using Mac OSX and QuarkXpress 6.5 I appear to have corrupted a file (showed 0 kb). When I went to open the (recently used) file I got End of File error -39.

Solution: In Finder, I took the corrupted file and dragged it on to the Desktop. Then I dragged the file onto the Quark (lotus) icon in sidebar. Bingo! It opened! And it was all there.

I do not know why or how it got that way nor how it recovered .. but it worked.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

This is my saw. I guess you could call it a lady's saw. It is small, sharp and very functional. That this is so is not by chance. I get great pleasure using this saw. (I am talking here about small branches and the like).

I am very fussy about tools, i.e. I clean them after use and put them away in a dry (hopefully) place. I think I get this habit from my father - a very tidy person when it came to tools and equipment in the yard: "a place for everything and everything in its place". Yup. I'm a fuss-pot in that respect.

Furthermore, I have a friend (Bob D. Yes, he looks after his tools which he uses to work on his car and his motorcyle etc.) who gave me a great tip about the care of saw-blades. He said that if you just rub a little Vaseline on the blade (having dried it off first, of course) before you put it away, in this case, by placing plastic blade cover over the blade, you will always prevent it rusting and the teeth will remain sharp.

So, in the same way as when I bring out a recipe given to me by someone, I always think of him when I go to put the saw away at the end of the day!

AUTUMN GATHERING

I was digging in the garden last week as the weather was mild and balmy. I hadn't been out long (it was late morning) when I became aware of a lot of birds settling in the trees around me.

Using the telephoto lens (as I don't have binocculars to hand) I took these 2 photos. I don't know what they are... starlings? In the city centre of Glasgow there are often large numbers of starlings settling on the ledges of the Victorian buildings. Actually they can be a real nuisance; nets have been put up to try and deter them.

It is quite fascinating to watch them swirl around, settle, chatter-chatter-chatter and then all of a sudden they move off. It can only be across the little park next door as it is possible to hear the sound of them off and on all morning.

I'm not quite sure what is going on. Are they preparing to head off somewhere? Is it about establishing the pecking order (oops...sorry about the pun)? Is it about who can make the loudest bird sound? I wouldn't say they were 'singing' ; it was more like 'chattering' and, indeed, all at the same time.