88 today, working but broke and an eye test

7 March

Today is mother's birthday, she's 88 now. That actually makes her the longest living person on her side of the family. I think her dad was the next oldest at 77. He died in 1971 I think it was. We really should be visiting her today but we both have GP and option appointments that we can't really wriggle out of. Neither of us is happy about that but there's nothing we can do about it.

Last night's Tonight programme on ITV was interesting, although not really surprising. People who are working are finding life so hard they having to turn to food banks for help. There's a lot of reasons why this is happening but one of the main reasons is they that energy prices have soared over the last few years. To some extent Jan and I are shielded from it seeing as our heating bill is just £8 a week with the heating coming from a community boiler. We still do pay for electricity though and Jan tells me that we are £250 in credit but our provider OVA, refuses to allow us to reduce the amount of our monthly payment of £60. Perhaps it's time we threatened to move supplier methinks.

Another issue facing all of us is the rise in food prices. The show last night claimed they have gone up by around 44%. That is a staggering rise in what is an essential shopping bill. It's no wonder cut price stores like Aldi and Lidle are getting more and more customers. We tried Lidle a couple of years ago and found the items we bought to be pretty tasteless. The fresh fruit and veg was certainly cheaper but there was a limited choice and none or very little from UK suppliers which we prefer. Of course we could make do with non-British items and then go elsewhere for items we don't like in Lidle ... but hang on a mow ... what about the added fuel costs of driving between them? Remember, we are both disabled and couldn't walk the distances involved. So we seem to be in the situation of not being able to do right for doing wrong!

The eye test has gone off OK, up to a point that is. She says that although my eyes haven't got any worse over all, I do have the very early signs of cataracts in both eyes. They shouldn't cause any problems for some years though. I wasn't going to have any new specs this year but I've remembered something she said about using sunglass as a normal practice. We'll be in town tomorrow and I'll call in and see about getting some ordered.

Today's photo is ... 

A moorhen in Riversley Park, Dorktown.

And today's funny ...

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!