Check it out

To celebrate the 2 lb weight loss, I treated myself to these kick ass clogs. A little wardrobe overhaul is on the 'to do' list but no hurry. I have a final Festival job to do and I want it out of the way so I am going to use Pomodoro and try to get it done today.

Update

I have been pretty good this week. I lost two lbs between Monday and Friday and that is without any real exercise. No exercise because I feel tired a lot of the time (a left over from the flu) and I don't want to overdo it - ha ha. I have had the mouth guard for two nights and it's not easy. The first night I kept it in for about 20 minutes. Last night I fell asleep with it but soon woke up and it was relegated to the bedside table. I will keep trying but the main drawback for me is that with one's mouth held open, it becomes very dry. I shall keep trying for awhile at least.

Sleep Clinic

I had my appointment at the sleep clinic on Friday. When Jane and I were in Poland, we shared a hotel room and she swears I have sleep apnea; this in addition to my dreadful snoring. So I thought I would check it out. Of course I had to go as a private patient. It would have taken about two years to get an appointment on the NHS. It is interesting when you are a private patient. You get seen by the Professor and he sees you quickly and spends time with you. We discussed my history of sleeping and my daytime activity or lack thereof. He explained the difference between sleepiness and tiredness. The only way to tell for certain whether you have sleep apnea is to come in to the clinic and stay overnight. You sleep with machinery connected to you and it measures how often you stop breathing. If I have it, it is quite mild so I decided not to do the overnight now but wait to see how I am at the end of the summer. He has suggested a mouth guard that will hold my mouth open while I am sleeping so my throat doesn't collapse. I'm very happy to try it and will get one on Monday. What I am less happy about is his recommendation (insistence) that I lose weight. He is talking a stone (14lbs). I know he is right but I'm not looking forward to it. The last time I lost a noticeable amount of weight, I was still smoking and that makes it a whole lot easier. I will start tomorrow counting calories and being good.

Headington Festival Party

On Friday evening we celebrated the good work we did preparing for and running the Festival. We used my house and garden. People began to turn up at about 6:30. It was trying to rain but wasn't too bad. James had brought a large barbeque which he expertly lighted up and we all stood about drinking and snacking while he dealt with the chicken, hamburgers and sausages. Everyone brought something so little work to do for me. I think it was a success. Well, I had a good time and surely that's an indicator.

Garden Pictures

Here is a taste of how wonderful things were looking yesterday.

Open Garden Day

We had beautiful weather for the Open Garden event yesterday afternoon. Alison, Sian and Harry were here to help. They manned the front room where people came in and had to either pay £1 or £3 depending on their membership status of The Friends of Old Headington. Sian took to this job like a duck to water and nobody slipped past her eagle eye! I think she was born to run a stall at a market. It's a pity she got led astray with that silly PhD. I don't know how many people we had but definitely very many and we had excellent positive comments from all and sundry. You might be saying to yourself that people would think they had to say positive things but, actually, they didn't need to say anything. Entrance to my garden is through the house which was fine. In fact, I think people enjoyed an inside peek as well as an outside wander.

The true winner and star of the day was Judith. She is the Garden Queen. She lives down the street from me and it was she who planned, dug, planted, weeded and brought forth over two years this beautiful tribute to her skill as a gardener. Of course I helped. I did 1% of the work and she did the other 99%. What a hero.

Festival Finito - Ooh La La

As you know, because god knows I have done enough moaning about it, The Headington Festival was on Sunday afternoon. It actually went very well. Lots of people who seemed to be having a good time. I was not up to par thanks to this beastly virus but I am proud to say that I was there from 9:30 until 5 when I crept home and crashed. I did what I could while I was there and didn't feel too useless. It turned out that everyone was about as discombobulated as I was which was very cheering. They are a nice bunch of people and I am looking forward to everyone coming here for the party/barbeque on the 18th. I don't have any pictures because I couldn't face carrying the massive Canon around with me. It is a wonderful camera but not all that portable. I had better learn to use my phone.

Skype in action

Most of the people I know use Skype to visit with their little grandchildren. Sweet. Jane and I had a go yesterday with the visual version which was classic. She has her rotten summer cold and looks like hell. I'm still recuperating from my virus and I have a general overall grey washed out look. We spent a happy five minutes chatting, snuffling and blowing our noses at each other. Up close and personal is such a good thing!