Moroccan soup

Still nice to be home, albeit somewhat chilly… A few chores, working up to avoiding ringing for help about setting up the new mobile phone. All the bumph says it’s easy peasy. But it wasn’t. I spent about an hour with a young lady of foreign extraction, not understanding each other, and eventually, after talking at length about the wrong phone, got set up. I think.

Then I said, ‘By the way, I can’t use my mobile in my house, I have to go outside. Is this normal?’ I knew full well it wasn’t normal… She passed me to another colleague after another five minutes of jangling soundtrack (in case I was bored).

Another foreign person who was hard to understand. He kept putting me on hold (more muzak). After looking for outages in my area (there were none), he came to the conclusion that my sim card was ‘too old’. I needed a new one.

‘NO! I don’t want to go through all that again! My sim card works fine everywhere else. How can it be the sim card?’

‘They wear out.’

More fiddling and searching for networks. I eventually gave up and said I’d leave it and go outside each time. It was easier than this.

‘No problem,’ says he, with a slight tinge of relief.

‘Well, yes, there is a problem. But we’ll leave it there. I’ve had enough.’

‘No problem, madam.’

‘YES. There IS a problem. But goodbye.’

I was audibly groaning and moaning by this time.

Popped out to the PO to return the fancy phone they sent me for which I have no use. They kindly sent a return envelope. As they’ve closed the two local Post Offices in recent years, it necessitated a bus ride. I sat beside an elderly ex-neighbour...

There’s something quite depressing about comparing knee gel painkillers with an 85 year old woman when you’re (only) 63.

Timed it well to arrive back for my doctor’s appointment to see about my (splendid) knee x-rays. Yes, they show general degeneration from a year or so ago.

‘When will they decide to do something about it?’

‘It doesn’t work like that. It depends on what you can and can’t do.’

‘Well, with help, I can mount a camel and a mule. I find two foot high Moroccan stair risers a problem without a banister. But I draw the line at having to get help out of the bath.’

‘I’ll refer you to the orthopedic surgeon.’

Waitrose ‘Moroccan Soup’ for tea. Packed with chickpeas, sultanas, spiced with roast coriander, cumin and cinnamon. On the trip we only had watery, insipid soup into which everyone stirred harissa paste (which J had bought and whipped out at every meal) to make it tasty.