The cute little hairdresser's scissors snip, snipped, her little Swarowski crystals, interwoven into her long multi-shades of blonde, tresses, sparkled and swung with her snipping movements.  I guess the hairdresser, who I was told was an experienced member of staff, must have been all of 20 years old. It was hard to tell her age, as she had such a sweet bright-eyed baby face.

I was left speechless!                       

If Disk Jockeys are required to, or choose to wear ear defenders, as the one 'performing' at a recent indoor gig was doing, and his were substantial, then guests at these functions should be offered the same protection to save their ears from damage from the unreasonable decibels that this sound equipment is set to work at.

The same safety courtesy should be applied to club-goers in commercial venues. Better still, there needs to be some control over the level of sound output in relation to the size of the actual indoor space.

It is impossible to have conversations, you can't socialise with people around you. Maybe socialising is a really old fashioned idea and you're not meant to.

This particular friend lives in a large imposing house. Yesterday on an impromptu walking visit, I saw a medium sized fork lift truck by the gateway of the house, trying to place its forks (or are they tines?) through floppy handles,in order to lift a builders bag of stones.

Tonight I went to a relatives' meeting at the care home. "It's the first one we've had ...for well...ages, but the manager is good about these things", explained a member of staff.

The meeting was well attended and included about half a dozen residents. The attendance level was notable, precisely, I think, because it was the first meeting that most people have experienced for a very long time. Everyone was offered refreshments and biscuits then we settled down to hear what was happening within the establishment.

Process, systems training and management was covered, so was specialised training for nursing staff, some of it sounded quite exciting. One major dementia support project had been put on hold by the care company. Care staff were guided in lifting and handling with the use of CD roms. Presumably, that's induction training for everyone working in the care home.

The Care Commission's report marking system showed that the home was doing some things well but others could be done a lot better. Areas like activity out of the precincts of the care home were few and far between.

There had been criticism about nutrition, appearance and warmth of food when served. Communicating with relatives, (the meeting this evening being a case in point) was another element to be improved. These issues did need addressing, they have been mumbled about for some time.

Champion systems were in place; one of the cooks had taken a cooking course. Nursing staff had a specialist interest each; drugs usage and application, infection control and so on. I wondered who measured the efficacy of championing especially when a particular champion was not working for a period of time?

It sounded like there were some good building blocks being put in place, I hope they are developed. But, the non-nursing care staff who are in greater numbers, also need development and training and we did not hear anything about that.

Effective communication between staff and staff, staff and resident and staff and family is a skills area that has to be kept constantly sharp, if it is not, problems will undoubtedly arise.

The best bit was afterwards, when in personal discussion with a nurse I know, we got some ideas on how to painlessly chat with someone who is talking back about the far ancestry, as if it is current stuff.

Stephen Fry being seductive about the up and coming, now, thankfully past, 'Humph Sunday' was a big turn off. That particular Sunday at home was exceptionally quiet because the radio stayed firmly switched off most of the day.

If I hear another Humphrey Lyttleton 'I haven't Got a Clue' announcement or any other attempts at cheap programming on the back of the demise of a showbiz personality I shall scream!!! I didn't find the programmes particularly amusing when they were broadcast the first time round and I was glad when they ended their seasonal runs. I hoped the various series wouldn't be returned and now, they are incessantly repeated.

It is obvious that the BBC programming didn't allow for a compére to die, at least not this one, but by heavens! They've not been slow to use the opportunity that has presented itself. Some royalties to participants' accounts is a huge saving on the contract fees that may have been paid out otherwise.

Give us a break. How long do we have to do this vicarious mourning on behalf of the BBC programming department gap-filling requirements? The whole broadcasting arrangement is a shallow charade. Stop it now!

Two things;

First; thank you blogUK for dealing promptly with the Captscottduke scammer and letting me know it had been done. We can all rest more securely now. However, there is every likelihood that there'll be more attempts,and we do have to remain vigilant.

If MB calls by, this paragraph is a message for you, and you can let me know if our experiments have worked okay.

I have caved in and put on an underwear layer and heavy duty late Autumn top clothing. I wore a warm hat when I ventured out, one unlikely to blow off. The wearing of said hat, incidentally, has absolutely nothing to do with Ascot week.

The seasonal(note, 'seasonal') solstice arrived and is flitting. I would be more physically content if there wasn't the constant flirting around with notional seasons, especially one called Summer.

Warning! There's a scam on blogUK .

You may receive an invitation from a Captscottduke who purports to be an American Soldier still on active duty, who gives lots of information on time in various locations in Iraq to seduce his reader into believing in the honesty of his 'offer'. A blog has been set up on the captscottduke site, there are no blogs on it. It is, in my view, a device for gaining entry to a big mailshot scamming list.

I have denied Captscottduke's invitation. I trust that the blog site organisers will investigate and remove this blog and blacklist the source of it.

Her condition became more worrying, her personal presentation more bizarre. She was in hospital to get better, wasn't she.

After discharge this week, it was discovered that the patient had been prescribed a medication very much implicated last year, (while in the same hospital) in disturbing patterns of behaviour.

Re-admitted to hospital in less than twenty-four hours, the GP and family, made it known that on no account was anymore of the contra-indicated drug to be administered, that it was likely the medication was instrumental in the patient's early return to hospital.

Assurances have been given by nursing staff that instructions have now been put on ward case notes to avoid a repetition of inappropriate prescribing.

The the thought of hearing another author badly intone their own writings over the radio waves dismayed me.  However,Ffion Hague's reading of her own book, The Welsh Wizard, her work on the life and loves of Lloyd George, was  refreshing,sparkling and meaningful.  It was read with a mastery of the vocal art.  This lady, read with lyrical, emotional and dramatic ability.

No doubt, Ffion Hague's Welshness has a lot to do with her apt speech patterns and her expert use of cadence. It was all so right, so pleasing to hear and generally, delightful.  I would not be at all surprised to learn that she, at some time in her life, participated in choirs and that great annual event of the Welsh arts, The Eisteddfod.

There is an exit from the supermarket that requires you, the shopper, to climb up eight steps. On the left side of the eighth  step is a pair of metal poles that are concreted into place and a rectangular red painted metal notice with white lettering is affixed to them. It instructs as follows:

"Trolleys will stop at this point".    

Just in case you were wondering, any trolley of mine would not have made it up the steps!

Oh well, it's that time of the year again; the side shows (a fun fair) have arrived. All the awnings have been erected, the rides are up and running and the decibels of canned noise are blasting out as always. Just the same as always, our weather has changed...for the worse.

I wish the side shows a safe speed on their next journey elsewhere,(and soon I hope).  

This was first written for Weather Check a couple of days ago. Nothing has changed.

We didn't go out to sea last year. The weather was too awful. Many of the little boats remained on dry dock. This year is a bit different, so far. there has been three weeks of reasonable weather and the harbour has many little boats bobbing up and down in the water where they are berthed.

Last weekend was a good one for catching a little time out in the bay. These pictures show you some of the life away from the land.

I heard there were mackerel about. Lots of birds joining in the party.

These gulls knew a where to find a good place to bask in the sun.

...and definitely a good day for a family outing.

I swear I heard a radio motor check that said, "There's a very, very long tail back of traffic on the ....motorway. Everything is moving slowly because of a rolling robot following on behind."

Okay, what was this rolling robot following?

I have never heard of such a thing.

I waited and the main programme continued.

This is not April Fools Day, but could I get the announcement again, no I could not.

Most puzzling.

Going down virtual memory lane this morning, I happened on the website of my alma mater; or, to be less opaque, the place where I got my higher education qualification. I set up a subscription registration so I could access the site, my last one, whenever it was, had well and truly lapsed.

I have had to get one of my toes looked at. It might just be a case of having walked my tooties off while away. Hubby reckoned I had a large corn on the underside of the toe.  It did not take kindly to pressure and I was not walking as much as I would like because of the sore pain; I was seriously limping. 

Thursday last week I booked a domiciliary appointment with a podiatrist for the earliest appointment I could get. This podiatrist is new to the area and has had to delay the opening of her clinic as the podiatrist's clinical chair is arriving three weeks later than expected. She turned up with her clever, wheelie box of tricks, the next morning.  I was never so happy as I was last Friday, to see trimming/digging blades and drills.

Exposing my problem to her professional gaze, the Podiatrist exclaimed, "That's a whopper of a corn you've got there!"  Then she set very cautiously to work.

I spoke to the wife of the sheep farmer, our neighbour. I thought the decibels of noise the sheep were making was due to it being mum and lamb separation time. But no, it is not.

There used to be teams that would get through the flock in a day or two. This year, there are about 600 sheep being sheared at about 100 per day. The noise the animals make when they are being shorn and when they are done, is something to hear. I doubt a large mixed choir with microphones could compete.

I've hardly been off this cyber planet and I am required to sign in to blog land, not once, not twice but thrice. I'm not like mother nature with her vagaries and unending wanderings. I do come back to the same dry spot on the home front, so why oh why, do I have to re-assign myself to my own blog, when I do?

I haven't cleansed the motherboard, nor has there been any rain of consequence, I am told, during my absence; even if there had been, the computer would not have been outside in any shower or downpour, it would have been sitting safe in the dry space allocated for it. The worst that happens when I am home, is 'housekeeping' or a little data cleansing exercise. I haven't done either of those little chores. So,I should still have my auto sign-in facility safely tucked up for ongoing use.

I looked in on my blog messages once whilst on my travels, to use up someone else's spare internet time and rest my aching feet. I could understand the need to sign-in to the inner sanctums of BCUK on a different computer, which I did for a private message check; I wouldn't have played around with the track back requirements, there was insufficient time for those.

To my knowledge there hasn't been a storm, lightning has not spotlighted our region, but even if it had, my information technology system would not have been affected, as everything, absolutely everything, was switched off and safely out of surge territory.

Returning therefore to my question, why on this cyber spot do I have to do so much signing-in following a wee trot into other spaces? I reckon BCUK is suffering weather wafting wobbles of its own. It needs a deep system detoxification programme - nettle tea anyone?

It wasn't that I pulled down the shutters and kept out all the news while I wasn't here, in fact I did the very opposite. I did keep up with world and U.K. news events, very much so, but through different media outlets to those which are usually cosily familiar and available here at home.

So, it was a great surprise to me therefore, that when back in this sceptred isle, I realised that I was very much uninformed about local U.K. media shattering events. Even more surprising, this knowledge (or lack of it) didn't faze me either. It has got me thinking just how parochial and narrow our U.K.wide news features can be.

It is so easy to amble along with someone else's ideas of what should be fed out to the population at large in the guise of major news. Some items might be news, even sometimes newsworthy, but a lot of what we get is just so channelled, we take our eye off the global picture, our own global picture and the larger one. This is how we become unable to evaluate and balance our views; this is how we can so easily be seduced to become obsessive navel gazers,

Considerations, other than local elections, political party bickerings and media manipulations have come into sharper focus, giving me a fresher and broader perspective to think about. Guess what, now I am back home, I am missing the relatively easy access to the different and broader presentation of news.