I've been home from the hospital system for 95 days now. In that time I have, on 11 occasions, had to take a Tapentadol tablet for strong pain relief. The last one swallowed was about 10 minutes ago, I can expect it to take effect in about 15 minutes more.
Can't happen quickly enough, I have too much pain in too many places.
Started my new job with Microsoft last week . Everything was going great until one morning until I tripped over a power cord.
I'm pretty sure I plugged it back in….
The arm rest width adjustment of my modular pull apart mobility scooter is achieved by loosening one or two plastic knobs that cover a bolt thread. It turns out the original ones are really fragile, I've attached photos of the better one of the two.
With the first pic the three strengthening ribs are all damaged to an extent. One has broken completely, one has a split and the other is bent. The 2nd shot shows the part that's gripped by the hand ti make the adjustment.
I paid a visit to the local hardware shop today and bought a pair of more durable hand knobs, one is shown in the 3rd pic.



My iPhone 15 Pro, iPod Touch and iPads do not have Airplane mode available.
This is because I use Australian English and the setting is properly called Aeroplane mode.
@variablepulserate No. We are talking of a salami-style of thing made primarily with beef and garlic.
A few days ago I bought a joint of my favourite roasting meat, young goat leg. It’s just a wee bit too long to fit in my air fryer so I’m cooking it long and low in the regular convection oven at 140°C for a little over 3 hours. This will be tender, juicy and full of flavour. The shank end, being smaller and rather exposed, has already been cooked and consumed.
I drove 55 km today to a Sunday market to buy a lump of garlic mettwurst. There just aren’t any delicatessens or butchers around here that make those fine sausages. But there’s always a rep at a weekend market somewhere that sells them.
Raisin awareness…
In 1981 I learned that the Victorian Railways popularised the consumption of raisin bread. I was on a crew installing extra phone lines for a political hopeful who worked for the railways and lived in one of around four railway-owned houses by a now closed railway station.
As part of a campaign to promote fruit sales, Victorian Railways Commissioner Harold Clapp had a bakery built to produce raisin bread. The intention was to assist fruit growers and increase the railways’ freight business. Although raisin bread wasn’t completely new, few bakers were producing it in Victoria at that time. Raisin bread and raisin toast were promoted on railway posters.
In an address to the Australian Dried Fruits Association annual conference in 1925, Mr Clapp admitted that it was a selfish interest, and yet a “fully mutual interest”. At that point, the railways were selling 20,000 loaves a month. These were “hygienically wrapped”, the first wrapped bread to be sold in Australia.
When the railways introduced the raisin bread, only three bakers in Victoria were making it. According to Clapp, only one of these was turning out a satisfactory product. By 1925, about 115 bakers were distributing it. The railways' formula required 7 lbs. of raisins to 14 lbs. of flour. Their consumption of fruit was about 5,000 lbs. of raisins and 1,000 lbs. of sultanas weekly.
The bakery went on to produce a range of other products including fruit pies, cakes and other “wholesome goods.”
Sent in a scathing review of an office chair to Amazon. The bloody thing cannot be assembled by following the instructions as two of the four screws attaching the arms to the seat back cannot be aligned. The only method that worked was to loosely attach the arms to the seat back, then also loosely attach the two rear screws on the arms to the seat base. Now the remaining two screws that go into the foremost part of the seat base can be wrestled into position, best done with three hands but I only had two available. Then all the screws get tightened and the plastic caps are fitted to hide the screws.
Next I hammered and levered and bashed the special easy-roll wheels off the old seat to fit to the new chair. These wheels are single 3-inch rubber ones rather than the dual two-inch plastic piece-of-crap castors than come will all such chairs. The chair rolls a lot easier and also gains an extra inch in height.
Four months. Four effing months since I went into hospital with septic arthritis in my left knee. It’s still an awful long time until I recover from it. It’s so bloody frustrating but whenever a physiotherapist or other health practitioner sees me they are really impressed with my progress. But dealing with the pain and frustration on a day-to-day basis, I just can’t see it that way.