how to change your duvet cover

london 3.05pm 11C sunny wednesday 2016

this method seems very easy to do and takes the hassle out of changing your duvet cover. she rolls the duvet bolster -like and then evert the duvet and roll it out right side out. 

though i have my own method which i have been using all these years and it is quite a quick method , much quicker than this one , it does require some dexterity and a bit of strength, esp as my duvet is a king size double duvet, two duvets in one, and is thus quite bulky. it is bulky but quite light, being made of down and feathers. 

i turn the duvet cover inside out, and then reach inside right to the other end to the two corners, and then through the two corners grip each corner of the duvet and then flip the duvet cover over the duvet and let it roll over and down the whole duvet. and that is it, all left to do is to button up and flap the duvet so that everything settles inside the cover. it is very quick unlike this folding of the duvet into a bolster… 

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

day of the dead celebration at the chelsea school of arts, which is near the tate britain. i happen to pass by on my way to the tesco, and on the way back saw a bit of this projection on the facade.

this morning i went to see the nurse in my gp practise for a checkup. they offer this checkup to any one of their patients who are 40-75yrs old. i have been getting quite a lot of phelgm and a chronic cough for some time, the phelgm getting more noticeable but did not feel i want to bother the doctor about it.  it seems rather trivial.

so i was rather glad that they have this checkup to give us. the nurse seem to think it serious, she told me i should see the doctor, and also to get a resting blood test. luckily the receptionist told me i can see the doctor now, as there has been a cancellation. so i am glad i dont have to wait. the doctor sent me upstairs to get an xray. this branch seem to have quite a lot of departments for testing. which is great as it saves me having to make another appointment with the hospital to get the chest xray. and the nurse told me to give a sample of phlegm which i try to cough up and drop it off at the box for them to test it.  so i am rather glad that i am being seen to and so quickly too. the xray will take a week for the result to come back. 

well, i felt quite unsettled after the appointment, not so much for myself but thinking about how health and bad health can really make a person feel very sad. esp as after the checkup i read a post by garfield hugs talking about the pain she is having. she seldom talks about the pain, so this one must be real bad for her to mention it.  i know how sad it makes me if i have loved ones feel pain or suffer bad health because there is nothing we can do about it to relieve that pain. i wish i got a magic wand that i can wave and make pain disappear. though i do am aware that pain is a good indicator of something going wrong, and so can be an early warning. but long term chronic pain is something else entirely. 

anyway, i remembered i have the john lewis free voucher for a cake and coffee  and it expires soon, so i decided i shall cheer myself up and go to their sloane square branch where they have cheese cake. their other branch in oxford st dont have cheese cake and i fancy cheese cake for some reason. so here i am sitting in the top floor cafe, under the skylight which is bright with the setting sun, and a grand view overlooking london and on the other side looking down the air well, with their christmas hangings. 

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

in a way it is just as well i dont get a lot of these free vouchers for free cake and coffee. they are just full of suger and not very healthy. but the few times i get them is just right, enough to make me enjoy them butnot that often that i get unhealthy amount of suger in me.

the store is putting out its christmas decorations for sale. amazing how every year they do this and there are still customers who buy them. i would have thought people would have built up a huge amount of these decorations and can reuse them every year so that there is never any need to buy any more. but it does not work that way. maybe just as well there are so many willing to buy them every year and keep the profits coming and make businesses still stay open instead of closing. 

the night before christmas

london 11.16pm 8.3C clear night. thursday 2015

i have been putting in my data of my expenses into my new spreadsheet and did not realise the time has flown. and when i next looked up i realise it is near to midnite and the coming of christmas day tomorrow.

it feels like any night actually. this is because there is nothing in my flat that commemorates it. it is too much bother to put up decorations etc. so i don’t. haha.

maybe that is why i dont feel sad or anything about it. or mind spending it alone, with no festivities around me. i like my own company and my own thoughts. that might explain why i dont mind being on my own.

simon is of course at  his mother’s. she lives in essex. i think he is in two minds about it. his mother expects him to go of course. but i think he gets fed up if he stays too long and comes back for some peace. haha. all that talk of families argueing with each other in these family gatherings, is quite true.  

i have managed to avoid joining him. do u know that to this day i have not met his mother? i know, it is strange, but it is because neither of us want to , i think. thank goodness his mother and i think alike there. we chat on the phone when she calls and i pick up the phone. otherwise we dont really have any conversations. she has not visited me, nor i her.

i dont mind. simon and i have been together since 2000, he mentioned it one day when he said he saw it in his diary. i myself have forgotten when we met. i dont bother to keep note of anniversaries, so dont remember the date or year we met. haha. i think he must think i am quirky, but thank goodness he does not mind. because i dont remember birthdays and dont celebrate them, neither mine or his. haha.

i dont know when his birthday comes round actually. i am glad he does not mind it. he used to give me a birthday card and presents for my birthday, until i dissuaded him as it is just more stuff to dust and find a place to put away and clutter up the flat. haha.

perhaps that explains why i am not too disturbed with these christmas or new year hoo haa. these so called special days just pass me by. i would go to bed early on new year eve, and sleep through all the fireworks and hoo haa. hehe, i dont mind it. 

perhaps also in malaysia, we dont really celebrate christmas that much. when i was a kid there, we just go to midnite mass and that is it. we have a christmas tree, an artificial one, with decorations which we use and reuse. and there are no presents. my parents could not be bothered with all that, because it is expensive that is why. haha. or at least i think that was why we dont get presents, and my parents dont emphasise that bit of it. so we are not expected to give them presents and they are not giving us any. it saves a lot of bother really. and i am rather glad we dont have that tradition. now that i have given up my religion, i dont have to go to midnite mass anymore. 

perhaps that might explain why now i never did like giving or receiving presents. i prefer to give , or receive cash, because that is what we got during chinese new year, in our angpows. literally translated as red packets. and the amount need not be a lot, as long as it comes in pairs. a coin and a note, or two notes, or two coins.

well, i like the way i spend the holiday period, but dont expect anyone to do the same. haha. i think it does not matter how you spend this period, as long as u are at peace with it.

have a happy time

london 8.46am 12.5C sunny thursday christmas eve 2015

i got two christmas cards , and they are pretty. so i thought i shall post them. 

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

they epitomise the image of christmas that i have.

though this time we dont have any snow. it has rained and i was thinking if we had a cold weather it would have turned to snow and we would have a blanket of snow covering the landscape now. i like the warm weather we have now but it does not feel very christmassy. 

 

today is the actual winter solstice

london 7.09am 14.3C tuesday 2015

Dec. 22, 2015	Rise	Set
Actual Time	8:04 AM GMT	3:53 PM GMT

Length of Visible Light	9h 10m
Length of Day	7h 49m Tomorrow will be 0m4s longer.

so, finally the shortest day of the year. not surprising that olden days people celebrate this day. solstice means sun staying still. that describes how it rises at noon lower and lower in the sky until the lowest position in the sky  at noon on one day,before it starts to get higher in the sky at noon again. that would be how ordinary people in olden days notice it. 

though with the hit and miss nature of time keeping they did in old days i am sure the day they celebrate it might well be a day or two out. it does not matter does it? any excuse to have a feast haha.

that might also explain why 25th dec is a special day. it might take that long to notice the day is lengthening again. and that might also explain why so many religions seem to use it, or a similar day around now to hang their hook of significant event on it. who knows if not for the wonky time keeping of the old days, christmas might  be 21 dec after all. haha. instead i would like to think it was to replace saturnalia which was celebrated around december. and so they chose  25 dec, just so  the christians wanted a christian feast to overlay that decadent celebration of the heathens, and now the christian version has completely obliterated that heathen one, so much so that no one now celebrates that heathen one anymore.

i suspect that children in olden days were a collective responsiblity, and each child is not treated any different from another. they all were collectively looked after. so it might serve a community to have all the births come in a batch.

so saturnalia is a good way of ensuring lots of babies born 9months later, and have a bunch of nursing mothers to provide milk to all those babies and frees other mums from nursing duties and getting on with other businesses.

it seems to me to be a really good arrangement. and allows every child an equal chance to get advancement in that society.

now in our present time, if u are lucky to get born into a rich family u have a better chance than another born into a poor one. and the difference gets more pronounced with each generation. the inequalities get wider.

christmas tree and carolling in trafalgar square.

london 2.58pm 13.1C, quite cloudy now, earlier it was sunny but very weak sun. friday 2015

yesterday the christmas tree in trafalgar square given to uk every year by norway was lit up.

wait till it gets dark, 3.53pm GMT tonight and u can see it in this webcam. its a live streaming video.

quite interesting to watch in daytime too, as it is like spying on the people  in trafalgar square. haha.

from today till 23dec there will be carol singing round that tree 4pm-8pm weekdays, 2pm-6pm weekends.

all the streets have lights strung across them all along their lengths now. so it is quite festive and christmasy. and the shop window displays will be all lit up too. 

added. 4.07pm, i see there is another bright light there, it is the menorah that is used by jewish people to celebrate hannukah. the candelabra is supposed to be lighted each day for 9 days. but i see in the live webcam a bright light where it is supposed to be, so it seems they have lighted it all at once. 

the christmas spirit

london 5.23pm friday 2015

the christmas gifting is building up to a big steam now. all the weekend papers got supplements full of gift ideas, and the tv adverts are just presents -filled. even the programs are now christmas themed. they all have very sentimental plots, but they do make me tear up a bit. rather silly but in a nice way, you know haha. and the ones that show new york scenes are really nostalgic, which just goes to show how new york have been associated with christmas in films for so long now, that it has been kind of burned into the national memory. haha.

most people will be thinking and worrying what to buy … not me of course, but i am all for the buying spree during these occasions, as this will keep businesses afloat for the year. most will earn their profits during this short period and sustain them throughout the rest of the financial year.

most of us complain about how commercial christmas has become, but it is what makes the money go round and provide jobs for people.

so far the shops have not put out the christmas decorations, they still  have the witches and halloween stuff in the window. but that will change. it’s only november, and you might well be forgiven if u think it is too early for the christmas hoo haa to start. but if u dont need to worry about buying anything , this time in thebuild up to it is rather exciting. even if u dont buy into the nativity thing,( like me), you can still enjoy the hype for what it is, a bit of theatre and entertainment. 

Top 10 Christmas Turkey Gift Ideas

Top 10 Christmas Turkey Gift Ideas.

lots of christmas themed ideas for presents . this  i like. i was laughing all the way through. i like the turkey pop up legs timer and the turkey telephone.

i have always loved this guy’s website featuring the best of everything.

what is even better is that click on the images and it takes u to the source and you can find out the prices of those items and actually get to buy them if u are that crazy or carried away by it all. 

Christmas in the Heart, hold all time together!

Christmas in the Heart, hold all time together!.

for those who love christmas songs and want to get into the mood of it, 3hrs here. enough to satisfy anyone.

here is another 2hrs of more christmas songs, not the traditional sort.

here is another 8hrs of it. not songs but piano music, not as interesting as the songs but might be good for background music. link

events comes around every year in a very predictable way

london

most things comes around regularly every year and it seems people like it. it is predictable and familiar.

so yesterday it was the switchingon of the oxford street lights for christmas. it seems quite a crowd went there to see it, though from what i saw of the lights decorations when i was there in the day it looked very plain.

just white globes strung across the street. maybe it looks better when they are lit up. i got a look at the picture of it when it was lit, and it still looked like white globes. i thought they might give it some colour and light them up with mulitcoloured lights.  

and i got an email from john lewis telling me of their new christmas advert and saying i can be among the first to view it before it gets aired. maybe they hope i will put it up in facebook or something. some people have said they are moved to tears by it, but i guess i am more cynical. haha. it did not do anything for me other than to see it as a clever ploy to get children to pester their parents to buy things. i understand that it is an important time for businesses, as most of their profits are made during this christmas period and the run up to it. so good luck to them.

the more sensible people like me will just enjoy the sights and sounds whilst not contributing to it. haha. a freebie and i love freebies.

i am just glad there are other people who like spending on christmas. i am reminded again that it is the spendthrift ways of a minority that helps pay for services. there was a tv program last night about energy bills (it is another of those programs about heating that comes on like clockwork at this time of year) and people cannot afford to heat their houses.

it seems the profit is from a few who uses huge amounts of energy. they say the average bill for gas and electricity is about £1300 a year. i wonder how many people have that kind of bill. mine is £230 a year for electricity. i dont use gas.

  so there must be quite a number who uses way more than the average and they are the ones who are paying so the people like me can get the service. if not for these high usage people,  supplying electricity or gas to households becomes so unprofitable that the companies will go bankrupt.

so all i am saying is thanks guys for using so much electricity and keeping  the companies in business.

in the tv program they mentioned and showed two families who live next door to each other, same numbers of people and houses,and yet one household pays £800 more than the other. they did not go into their lifestyles to find out why… that would be more interesting to me….instead they put their reporter in a room at 12C without any warm clothing and let him freeze and film him for us to see him shivering away. haha. and then warn us that will happen to us if we keep our rooms at 12C. they have not heard of warm clothing obviously. but u can see if not for those households who just either carelessly or ignorantly ring up huge electricity bills, and they must outnumber people like me who dont use much; we may not even have companies wanting to supply electricity to people like me, as it is a loss maker to them.

i cannot imagine what profit they can make out of me ( after all, half of that £1200 annual cost is incurred by expenses in supplying it) so if not for the many others who cannot bring their usage down i doubt they would be interested in supplying me.

 many of those featured seem to think just because they have a medical condition,are old,  or have children , they must put up the heat or they will die or something. that is a fallacy. but no one dares tell them, because depand on it, they will die (of their condition but who is to say it is not brought about by it) and whoever gives that advise will be sued. that is why so many of these public annoucements dare not say it.

but if u use a bit of common sense, cold temperatures by itself wont kill you if u know how to keep yourself warm. afterall the eskimos are a good example of that. i am a good example of that too. i have not need to have any heating in my flat for years. and i am still alive and healthy. and i might add i dont even notice the cold nowadays.

tell me is it cold at this time of year? to me it is very mild. 

more food and thoughts on christmas

London
The supermarkets have upped their advertising for food ahead of the Christmas holidays. I have noticed lots more of these being shown on tv, and also in the papers.
And I noticed others are advertising more too… presents, clothing, liquor, perfume, with a Christmasy theme.

I am glad I am not celebrating it, because it must be a chore to be having to cook Christmas dinner for a lot of people.

 

I read online that the americans even have two holidays, around now. Once at thanksgiving holiday on 28th nov, and then Christmas on 25th dec.

That is even worse than in uk. After eating turkey for thanksgiving, they have to think of cooking something else for Christmas.

Ah well, I guess their souls wants it. Haha. Of course they don’t have to celebrate it.

I was at the Trafalgar square yesterday (thurs 21st nov), for a free pig meal. it was in aid of a campaign to feed waste food to pigs. I always thought farmers were doing it already, but it seems not so.

added. 24.11.13 i suspected there is a reason why pigs are not fed waste food, and why the EU bans it. here is why.

It was rather nice to get free food. Pigs were reared and fed waste food in a farm and now they are being fed to us. I had a mince pork ball in a lentil sauce, and a bun with coleslaw and pork. There were lots of stalls, and another was giving out pulled pork in a bun, which I really wanted but I was on the wrong queue.

I went early and so there was not a long wait, by the time I finished my food, the queue was getting long, and I did not fancy going back to queue again.

I asked a lady next to me, if she thinks the food is too salty. She said well, it is salty but that is normal. I fear it is normal nowadays for food sold to the public to be salty… it is only me who finds it too salty. (it was so salty that I became extremely thirsty. Luckily I always carry with me a bottle of water.)

Ah well, I am reconciled to this, with me being out of sync with the majority. So I guess I can continue not to bother eating out with a clear conscience, in that I am not missing out on anything, as the food won’t be to my liking anyway being too salty.

It is an admirable aim, to get more food waste being diverted from being dumped to being food for pigs. Hope they succeed in it.

With nothing to worry about, esp over the coming holiday season, I can look forward to December with joy instead of dread. And enjoy everyone fussing over the holidays without me having to do the same.

I would not like to be in the shoes of those who have to host family or friends or have to put on entertainment for them. Or even worse have to buy presents for them.

Long ago, I have initiated the idea of not buying presents for each other, and so now I reap the reward haha. No need to send or receive unwanted presents from anyone.

The other side of the coin to not celebrating christmas is that I shall be spending Christmas on my own. That goes without saying, as those who want to celebrate Christmas wont be interested in spending it with you, and you wont be accepting invites from friends to celebrate with them either.

So if u don’t like to celebrate Christmas but don’t like to be alone, I am afraid u have a dilemma. Haha.

A lot of people think that being alone at Christmas is a failure. And the movies and stories keep telling us so. If u are alone at Christmas, it means u are a scrooge. Dickens Christmas carol is to blame for this. I am glad I don’t conform to what others think. I want to be alone at Christmas. So there!
I think there are lots of people who feel the same, and don’t mind being alone for Christmas.

Now as for being alone at New Year… I like it, but I think not that many will feel the same way about it as I do.

For those who don’t like their own company this would be something to dread, but I welcome it. Haha.
I even turned down an invitation from john, in poole to join him and his friends for Christmas.

There are a glut of books being put out this time of year, I guess to catch the Christmas giving season, so I have loads of books I borrowed from the library to read.
I was at the library today and borrowed doomed, by chuck Palahniuk, tom Lloyd, the god tattoo. And I already have about 7 other books to read.

And then there are all those tv programs to see.

 browsing the web this morning and this came up in my reader. bitter melon with spam and tofu cooked in a new york street . as a child i did not like it, but as i grew older i got to like it. knowing the modern world i would bet the bitterness is bred out, so that it is not as bitter as it used to be.