Catch Up, Trees

Gumnuts & Catch Up

Just outside the side fence, we have two gum trees flowering: one bearing yellow blossom and the other red. The bees love them. Since the red blossom is far too high above ground these days to photograph, I fished through my albums to find a past photo for you. Here ’tis.

gum red blossom

gumnuts

I went to the doctor today to get my … oh-oh … just had to rush off and down a blood pressure tablet … umm … to get my routine blood test results. My blood pressure is fine. The blood work came back fine – kidneys, blood cells, liver, etc. The only thing outside the range is my thyroid which usually runs about 4.7.  This has always been okay until the upper limit came down from 5.50, so I’m now always above the minimum. (I’m not taking medication for this.)  I’m still awaiting the results of the 24 hour urine I presented to pathology on Tuesday – I’m going back in two weeks for that result.

The latest word from the doctor, re antimony levels, is that the local residents are now showing normal urine results. Apparently the expert opinion is that the antimony was hanging about in the air and has now settled after all the rain we’ve had.  The doctor feels my some of my arsenic levels might be from too much seafood. We will keep an eye on it, of course.

While there, I decided to show Mary Jane my fingernails. Earlier in the year, while checking my nails in the waiting room – as you do – I noticed they were an orangey colour, like I’d been peeling oranges. One of my liver markers was elevated, so I thought it related to that. I forgot about it, until this week, when I noticed that the nail colour has returned to normal from the cuticle up the bottom third of the nail.  Mary Jane expressed surprise, asked if I was taking any herbs (I’m not, apart from the odd chamomile tea.) and got out her mobile phone and took photographs. She emailed the photos to someone who would know about such things.

I’m still taking the Coloxyl twice a day. When I asked her about the onions, she looked dubious and said coriander is good for detox and it is best added to juice. So, that’s almost sorted then. I still haven’t had my PAP smear, and my BreastScreen came back clear. All in all, I’m feeling great. I’ll just keep exercising a few times a week, watch what I eat, and generally avoid working too hard. I’m good at the latter. 🙂

Now, what else … I have been a bad, bad girl. I haven’t touched my novel for ages. I can say that will change, but who knows!

Reading: I just read a Clive Cussler novel, which makes me feel confident about my writing ability but not my story-telling. I like good old plain writing. Last night I finished re-reading Margaret Rose Stringer‘s memoir And Then Like My Dreams. Reading it for the second time was even better than the first. It is a very revealing look into M-R’s headspace.

Online learning: I’m loving the Times of Richard 111 course, learning so much. I haven’t been paying as much attention as I should to the Writing class, winging my way through the assignments but printing out stuff for later study.  Getting closer to having to produce that marvellous piece of paragraph writing. I quit the How To Change The World course. It was all a bit too far over my head and I didn’t like the assignments as they expected a hands-on approach. There was too much reading, and I got too far behind. Addressing poverty was about Extreme Poverty and looking to third world countries, ignoring poverty in the backyard, more or less saying it wasn’t extreme enough. I also got annoyed when success in these countries was judged on the ability to create a middle class. Well, hello, what about the ones still on the bottom, their poverty was probably worse. One of the lecturers said that there is now more food grown in India than ever, but it still does not get to all the people who need it.

That’s about it. Everything else is pretty much the same here. Still working just the basic three days a week, for a few hours or so, cleaning.  I suppose I’ll have to do my tax return soon. The only taxes I pay are the GST, though I believe there is talk of doing away with the mature worker offset and the low income offset.

I still want to finish the tasks in the Blogging University, and I’m going to start Lisa’s Bite Size Memoir challenge, too.

I also have to declare this an Awards Free Blog, since I have now been awarded two awards – one by raroto over at Duniya Ku and someone else did too, but for the life of me I cannot remember who! Was it you? Own up!  I stumbled across it. I even clicked on it to make sure it was me.  You’re all very welcome to nominate me for Awards. I’ll carry out the associated task and link to your blog. But I wont make myself pick favourites, sorry.  Anyway, I thought I would be getting ahead of myself if I declared myself award-free beforehand. Enough said.

I haven’t been doing any family history.

And that seems all I have to say for now. Thanks for calling in and reading.

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22 thoughts on “Gumnuts & Catch Up”

  1. Sue says:

    You could wash your car every day if you showered with it, start a new fad. (Can just see the news report on National T.V.) Glad your levels are returning to a normal count, probably all the coloxyl is flushing it out.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. That nails thing’s odd – no wonder she photographed ’em, eh ? Everything being goos is really super: you must feel kind of virtuous on account of it, CR ! [grin] Well, except for washing the car, that is. 😉
    At my age, I don’t give a rat’s about breast images or pap smears: they’re too bloody uncomfortable not to say painful. Got me triglycerides to consider, after all: they take up all me spare time. Not.
    I like these kinds of posts: it’s like reading a nice letter from a friend – and in fact that’s exactly what it is !

    Liked by 1 person

  5. raroto says:

    I’m real pleased to know you’re doing good health-wise. Getting the all clear from the doctors is almost like winning the lottery, I said almost coz I’ve never won a lottery before … Kinda makes you wanna do the chicken dance or something. Or wash the car in the rain… tee-hee 🙂 i want to tell you to stay healthy but I could see you’re already doing that, so I’m just gonna say Cheers!
    Cheers Christine!

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Hi Christine
    I love your blog tagline ‘trying to keep the brain cells alive’ as I that’s one of my big missions too. I’ve had a look round your blog and reading this post can see your community has had some sort of heavy metal poisoning? Yikes! Sounds just terrible – When I had all my mercury fillings out (part of my cancer battle) I detoxed the metals taking chlorella tablets on the advice of the dentist. I did also cook with a lot of fresh coriander – in fact a bunch in a vegemite sandwich can be delicious – but I have weird tastes!

    However you found me, thanks for popping by my blog and having a look at bite size memoir. We’re a growing community of mostly would be writers wearing their hearts on their sleeves having a go at memoir! You seem to fit the bill perfectly. This week’s compilation will be out later today and the prompt for the coming week is out tomorrow around 2pm BST.

    Hope we see you again soon. Lisa x

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    • Hello Lisa, yes, we have a gold and antimony mine not all that far from here, plus the town is built on an old gold mining area from the 1850s. It seems the mine was a bit slack with dust suppression until this past summer and a lot of residents had high levels but we can’t be sure exactly why. Word is the antimony was in the air.

      Oh, coriander and vegemite? An Aussie then – I have to admit I haven’t read anything on your blog yet! Just spent enough time there to grab the link and see you have 10 of the memoir prompts under your belt. A few of the people I follow are right into it. I’m looking forward to joining in and will probably do a few a week until I catch up. Coriander and vegemite … [still shaking head in amazement] 😀

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      • Actually British but I thought you might be Aussie! We actually have both vegemite and marmite in our house – the wars rage over which is best!! Just googling antimony – hell. Where in the world are you?

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        • Goodness, I didn’t know people voluntarily ate vegemite without being brainwashed as a kid! I’m in central Victoria, Australia. My post called “Would you like antimony with that?” has a google map on the bottom. It’s a few posts back … July 10.

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          • Well, Lisa, I tried the coriander and vegemite, and it was rather … pleasant. I settled for dried coriander until I can get it fresh. At the supermarket I bypassed ‘freshly chopped’ and the paste options.

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  7. I’m glad you’re doing well, and that you’re feeling great. Hopefully you’ll get back to your novel soon enough. I love the picture of the gumnuts. It’s beautiful. 😀

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  8. It sounds like you are doing well health wise. Good for you Christine. You are a go getter. I’m amazed by how much you seem to get done. The pic of the gum nuts is good. We too are on strict drought water usage with the promise of $500 per day fines for those who insist upon using more than their small share.

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    • Wow, big fines. I suppose they are hefty here too. We were only on restrictions because, before the drought, most of the water in Lake Eppalock had to be let go so the retaining wall could be repaired. And then there were following dry years. The dam filled rapidly last year and is still full.

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    • Time?, goodness, I wonder the same about you! My kids have grown, I don’t clean my house much, I don’t get visitors, I rarely iron, and my garden is rampant with weeds. I’m hoping I get over this blog obsession soon so I can get back to writing! But it’s so much fun.

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