My Surgeon was pleased with my progress today. It has been seven weeks since my surgery; he says I can go back to work and drive again. I took great pleasure in driving over to the Radio studios (to pick up a USB keyboard, I’d forgotten Dells don’t support PS2) and a minor jaunt down to the White Rose Centre (although the wind was strong enough to have to brace myself on the way in and out). After seven weeks of being near-housebound, you can only begin to imagine how liberating this is.

The other thing the hospital has now sorted out is the X-Rays IT- I just needed to take a card there and back & the results were visible on the computer screen.

One thing I had noticed them do last time in X-Ray was to put a small piece of masking tape onto the cassette. I asked them about it this time- it was a small lead letter R- denoting right hand X-Ray room. It seems that the imaging unit is common to both rooms so that it is a sanity check as to which image is which in case of muddles. A surprisingly low-tech solution in a high-tech environment.

I went along to the first formal meeting tonight, there had been a couple of informal ones but tonight it was the election of the Committee.

At the end of the meeting, the new Chairman decided to read a poem and she had brought along a bunch of daffodils as a visual aid. However, they had yet to bloom, so lost a bit of their impact.

I wandered lonely as a cloud:
That floats on high over vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars
that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Someone suggested we finish every meeting off with a poem, so I suggested I’d learn Philip Larkin for next time.

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Three in the house from the radio station, being backed up and brought up to date. (They haven’t been on line for over a year).

I’d forgotten what a pain Windows update is-  you download loads of updates, run it again and another dozen appear to patch the patches. You eventually get it down to zero but that doesn’t mean all is well, of course. After running various tidy-up tools and deleting obsolete software, the system is clean, but then you change some hardware or update some drivers and the process starts again (although generally not as far down the iterative tree).

Whilst the PC goes through its Saint Vitus dance, it has given me a chance to sort out the spare room/office in a small way, the room with ten years of accumulated junk. It is also an iterative process- stuff to chuck has been chucked, stuff to go to the charity  is being decanted into charity sacks, books & videos are going onto shelves, paperwork into the paperwork heap, hardware into various boxes.

The next stage will be to sift the hardware into items and cables, then different types of cables. Then, gradually, I will remember what some of these obscure cables match up with.  (& some of them won’t be worth keeping!)

Eventually, my leg will be strong enough to make it up the lift ladder, when there are even more cables, bits & pieces & packaging. Whenever I go up there, I am reminded of a Spitting Image sketch starring an Indiana Jones Character, the punchline I don’t recall now. Anyway, he was rescuing something from a restaurant and had to pass through “the room of meaningless cardboard”.

I’ve got one of those…

Meanwhile, here is another shot of David admiring the Parrot at the Woodlands Hotel.

An anonymous reader (with a bag stall in Morley Market) has just pointed out to me that in last weeks’s Obtiser, Morley Borough Independent Councillor Terry Grayshon has morphed into BNP Councillor Chris Beverley.

Rooting through the recycle bin and checking on page five, it is indeed true. Can we expect an apology in tomorrow’s paper for their incompetence? I’m not holding my breath…

With a cast of 45 and over 140 costumes, the Morley Operatic put on their 35th annual Pantomime last week. They also very graciously put me at the end of a row and kept the side bench clear so that I could stretch out during the show. (The cushioned perimeter bench is more comfy than the only slightly padded hall chairs, I discovered!)

The Panto was set in the alpine village of Schveigern which surprisingly had a Clock just like Leeds Town Hall. It featured the inevitable Dame, a Burgermeister with a wooden leg, three evil witches, a Prince with opulent costumes barely covering his (her) long legs and Erik (a Buttons type character) with disturbingly short German Shorts.

I got a bit distracted during the first half, as one of the nearby loudspeakers suspended over the balcony front started spinning round for no obvious reason and I became concerned that it might potentially come loose and lamp someone. (The sound man told me it was kids fiddling with the bracket on the balcony above).

After a 20p choc ice and a hobble to the toilets, I enquired as to how the clock repair was going. It seems Potts & co. said they would be back in two weeks time two weeks ago so being able to tell the time downtown is imminent.

The fourth photo is worth a closer look to see what traditional ditty was chosen for the community singing…