My question is why do all the dukes, lords, princes and viscounts seem to lose their shirts on the covers of period romances? These books used to be called "bodice rippers", maybe the name should now be changed to "shirt shredders"! It seems to be catching as there are a lot of shirtless cowboys around as well...
I keep my Kindle topped up from the 100 free bestsellers list from Amazon as I can usually find a couple of books worth reading but that certainly doesn´t include the above.
Last August my cardiologist said my test results were so good that he was going to reduce my medication by half...fine...although over recent months I felt my palpitations had increased. I have recently had my next test and out of curiosity I checked the results which are online, although I don´t really understand them, and compared them to my previous test.
Imagine my feelings when I realized that I was looking at someone else's test results, which had been put in my file by mistake! My cardiologist obviously hadn´t noticed the error and altered my treatment according to the wrong results - which were of a 55 year-old man, a smoker, who weighs 30k more than I do.
My doctor, when I saw him, was rather dismissive about the incident and I am now debating whether it is time for a change of cardiologist.
Photo by Etactics Inc, at Unsplash
One of my sons, who lives in England, is considering moving to Spain or Portugal. Since Brexit this has become rather complicated, unfortunately.
Anyway, he has just found out that if you have a direct Italian ancestor, even generations back, you are entitled to Italian citizenship and therefore could live in the EU. It just so happens that my great grandfather on my father´s side was Italian!
The only problem is there´s no-one but me still alive who knows anything about that side of the family and my knowledge is sparse. I have my father´s and grandfather´s birth and death certificates and my great grandfather´s death certificate, so I can prove a direct line, but I need his birth certificate to show he was an Italian citizen.
Family legend has it that he was from the north of Italy, possibly Milan. Since our surname is rather unusual I´ve started trying to research there but I don´t really know what I´m doing. I speak Portuguese, but not Italian, which doesn´t help. So, this is my latest challenge, rather an interesting one I think.
I´ve just had my fifth Covid vaccination. It´s made by Pfizer and is supposed to protect against Covid and also the new variants and is called the Bivalente. I hadn´t heard anything about it until a friend rang me to say it was available for our age group. I decided to have the jab even though there is not much Covid about at the moment, or at least not in the news. Better safe than sorry!
Other police cars were arriving rapidly until within minutes there were eight altogether. How such a large number arrived so quickly I´ve no idea, but there certainly doesn´t appear to be a manpower shortage.
Although all the policemen were armed and some had their weapons in their hands no shots were fired, and since no ambulances arrived, thank goodness, no one appeared to be injured. Bandits are usually armed as well.
These convenience stores, called OXXO, are popping up everywhere. There are three within a half-mile radius of my flat and they all stay open all night. I heard later that it was the second night running this particular one was held up - the first time the thieves got away with loads of goods and cash. I feel sorry for the poor employees who have to face theses risks.
I really enjoyed my trip to England and spending time with my family there. I went to London, Maidenhead and Manchester so it was quite a busy time but even so I came away feeling I hadn´t done everything on my 'bucket list' - including eating fish and chips! More reason to go back again soon.
My daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter returned to Brazil ahead of me so I traveled back on my own, changing planes in Lisbon. Unfortunately my flight from Lisbon to Brazil was delayed for several hours so it was quite a tiring haul. Anyway, I arrived home eventually, about 24 hours after leaving London. I was so relieved when I put my key in the door as I´d also had a scary time at the airport here with taxi problems. Needless to say I went to fetch Toby as soon as possible...but that is another story...
A frozen pond
