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IN THIS ISSUE

• Margaret Manning continues her holiday story
• Louise Kruithof describes her first encounter with Chinese medicine
• Hugh Doherty is a real techno expert, even if an outdated one
• Verda Cook adds important information about your amaryllis
• The results of the survey are in
• Shirley Conlon tells of a unique reason for calling in sick
• Gerrit de Leeuw, Tom Williamson, and Tony Lewis suggest interesting sites

Margaret Manning continues her account of

AN UNFORGETTABLE TRIP

We must have walked miles the first week we were in Suffolk. The town is still small enough to make walking from one end to the other an enjoyable activity. We got great pleasure from the many cottage gardens displaying magnificent hollyhocks, roses, lavenders, and other colourful and scented flowers. There was a very old thatched roof cottage that was used centuries ago as the local "Sick House". Because it was at the end of a lane on what was then the outskirts of town, it was the ideal place to isolate the sick. It has had a wonderful restoration and is now quite a grand home. The nearby river was a favourite place of mine for catching tiddlers in a net and taking them home in a jar.

Steve took us on a "mystery tour" on Sunday afternoon. He took the back roads - some barely wider than a single lane - and through many tiny and picturesque villages. We passed huge fields growing wheat, barley and oats. Our destination was Felixstowe, on the Suffolk Coast. The southern end of the town is the site of a large container port. The centre has the pier, amusement arcades, boating lake, shops and accommodation, and the very stony beach. The northern end, called Old Felixstowe, has the links golf course, a boatyard, launching ramp, walks along the beautiful coast, and a shop that sells fish straight off the boats. It all looked very lovely but the bitterly cold easterly wind, and the fact the only cafe that end of town was closed, prevented us from doing anything other than buying some fresh fish for the evening meal.

Our return to base took us through more hamlets and dots on the map. That was the only time in our six weeks in England we were able to go out anywhere with our nephew - more about the reasons later.

We collected a rental car from Ipswich during the second week of our trip. Having ordered a small 1300-c.c. vehicle, we were delighted to be upgraded to a 1600 Peugeot 308. We had to wonder how we managed to get lost in a town we´ve known all our lives. Somehow or other, instead of being on the motorway back to our base, we found ourselves going in completely the wrong direction. It took quite a while to find our bearings and correct the error. Steve jokingly said he´d lend us a GPS so we wouldn´t get lost again. We didn´t think we´d need one, saying that people had found their way around England for hundreds of years without the use of a GPS.

The next day we left for Norfolk, minus a GPS. We were to have lunch at a relative´s house on the outskirts of Norwich and were expected at noon. We used country roads as much as possible but eventually joined the A.140, a notoriously busy road. This road was extremely busy even in the 1950s, and although parts of it have been widened, there are still several places that are narrow and very congested.

We eventually saw a sign advertising a Farm Shop and called in. That was a most delightful stopping place and we spent too long there drooling over the pickles and cheeses, breads and vegetables, and enjoying coffee and cake.

Although I am quite good at reading maps, we missed the turn-off for Sprowston and found ourselves halfway to Great Yarmouth. By the time we had turned around, found an exit leading north and in unfamiliar territory, it was already 12 o´clock. We rang Eric´s sister and apologized for being late. Another 20 minutes passed before we finally pulled up outside the house where Eric´s sister, niece, great- niece, nephew and niece-in-law greeted us. They all asked why we hadn´t used a GPS.

We had a lovely time with them, reminiscing over the good old days and enjoying the immaculately kept garden. We had rented a cottage a few miles away and thought we had better get written instructions how to find it. Their instructions were perfect and we had no trouble finding our base for the next few days.

(To be continued)

Louise Kruithof writes about

A NEW EXPERIENCE: THE CHINESE MEDICAL SYSTEM

While living in Huolinguole, Inner Mongolia, I experienced some difficulties with the right side of my face. It started on Thursday, November 6, 2008, at dinner. I noticed that I could not quite close my lips over the glass of water I was drinking from, but I did not think much of it. On Friday, my husband and I were invited to a formal dinner with some officials of his place of work and I noticed that I was having a definite problem with controlling the position of my lips on the glass. I only sipped on my glass of wine because I did not want to stain my clothes, but did not think much of it again, thinking that it would pass.

On Saturday, I had some people come over to the hotel to work on English, and as teaching involves a lot of talking, this little problem was becoming a big problem. My face felt as if I were trying to do an imitation of Jean Chretien. It was becoming very uncomfortable, and I was starting to worry about what was causing me to feel as if I had just come out of major work at a dentist´s office - frozen face and little or no feeling or control of my face muscles.

Sunday went by and it was getting worse. On Monday, a new student was coming to practice spoken English, and she was doing very well, with corrections being required only here and there, mostly choice of words or grammar that required some explanation. As an example, when should one use "many" versus "much": many candies in the jar as opposed to much candies, or much snow as opposed to many snow. Again, talking was required and it was becoming very uncomfortable. I asked how one went about getting medical help in this town and she very nicely offered to take me to the hospital the next day, Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, Michelle (her English name) came to pick me up and we walked to the hospital. It was a short walk but brisk because it was windy, and the wind in Mongolia is fierce and cold.

After entering the hospital, we had to go to the cashier because one needs a booklet for the doctor to write in. It cost two yuans to get the booklet with my name and age on it. Because the lady at the cashier´s office needed a Chinese name, Michelle gave me one on the fly. My name is now Lu Yi Tse.

This was at 9:00 o´clock in the morning. New name, new booklet in hand, we went where we were told to go. At this point I was only following, not having much of a clue as to what was going on, my knowledge of Chinese being still very limited. We went to see the nurse around the corner and get a preliminary assessment of the seriousness of the problem.

The hospital was fairly new and fairly clean. The walls were still whitish, everyone (the hospital personnel that is) looked as if they knew what they were doing, and it was very busy. I kept repeating to myself that I must put some faith in people in this very alien world.

Around the corner, we entered a room where there were people standing around, waiting to be looked at by the nurses. When they saw us enter, most of the people in the room stared at this foreigner, but then started to move back a bit and told us to go ahead in front of them. They assumed that for a foreigner to come to the hospital it must be serious. Personally, I think that the white hair also helped because Chinese culture is very respectful of elders.

So we quickly got to the nurses, who asked all kinds of questions, everything translated of course, and promptly decided that I must see a doctor immediately. They thought that I might have had a problem with my heart and should be looked after quickly. As directed, we went to the second floor, climbing the stairs. After asking for directions, we made it into another room yet with lots of people standing around and a gentleman sitting at a desk. He was wearing a white lab coat and a sort of pill hat on his head. Again, after a first look and a short stare, everyone showed us to the doctor, the one with the pill hat on.

The doctor asked that I sit on the chair beside his desk and then he proceeded to take my blood pressure, check my face thoroughly, and tell me not to worry - that it was nothing very serious. Again, I had to trust the people around, in this case Michelle, who was doing all the translation. He told us to go downstairs and get a CAT scan done on my head and neck to be sure that there was nothing serious going on, and told us to come back after 2:00 in the afternoon when he would have the results of the CAT scan and could discuss it with a specialist who was due to be there in the afternoon.

Off we went, down the stairs, back to the cashier, because one must pay for tests before they are done. That cost 200 yuan, a large sum of money if one were Chinese. To put things in perspective, 100 yuan to a Canadian is the equivalent of $20, but to someone living and working and being paid regular wages in China, that is almost like being asked to give $200 for the test.

Upon being told that I needed a CAT scan, I immediately thought that there would be a long wait, first to get it done and then to wait for the results. To my great surprise, once we found where it was being done, I was invited to go into a room through the next door, by myself please. With a bit of anxiety and feeling the loss of my safety blanket, Michelle, I entered the room. The lady in the room invited me to remove my heavy clothing, coat, hat, scarf, and sweater and to lie down on the bed attached to an enormous piece of equipment.

Still somewhat wondering what was going on and a bit scared, I lay on this contraption. She settled me on a pillow and asked that I not move for a few minutes. Sign language, accompanied by the few words I understand, helped a lot. She then disappeared and the machine started moving horizontally, coming over my head to just below my shoulders, then retreating, waiting a few minutes, and the process started over again.

Then the technician came back into the room and told me that everything was OK, it all looked good, and I was not to worry. I wanted to know exactly what she was saying and not try to make up the words between the ones I understood, so I opened the door and asked Michelle to come in and tell me what was being said. I was relieved, because what I had understood was correct, but then Michelle told me that we had to come back in the afternoon to get the pictures and to see the specialist who would be upstairs at that time.

So, what now? Well, we had two hours to wait so we went to lunch. It was very good. Michelle took me for a walk, about three blocks away from the hospital, to some alleyway and we entered a restaurant. There was a family sitting at one table and another table was occupied by a single woman, also eating. We sat at a third table, which made it that half the tables in the restaurant were occupied.

Michelle ordered the specialty of the house (they all have specialties, usually quite tasty), and when it came there was a plate of what she called cakes, but they were more like very thin French crepes, about eight inches in diameter. Then came a plate with some spices, and another with pieces of leek about two inches long and one- quarter inch wide, and then a plate with shredded pork. I wondered how to eat that with chopsticks. We took one crepe, put it on our plate, put some of the pork on it, folded it in half, added pieces of leek, some spices, rolled it together, and picked it up with the chopsticks. Very yummy!

To be concluded.

Hugh Doherty writes about his electronic hobby:

TECHNO-BABBLE

I´ve been looking at my video collection today - some 200 titles put together over more than 20 years. Fifty of those are family videos I shot and edited myself. All of them are VHS!

Because my computer is not DVD-endowed, my wife Jean bought me a standalone DVD recorder a few Christmases ago so I could transfer my collection to DVD. I´ve been fairly busy at that ever since, but realize I will not live long enough to do anything like the whole works.

Luckily, I have three functioning VHS players, two of them relatively new, as well as three DVD players. Now, of course, there is Blu-Ray DVD. I don´t think I will bother with that.

I have another large collection, one of classical recordings. About 400 of those - all vinyl LPs, mostly from the 1960s. I read that vinyl LP is making something of a comeback, but I don´t think I´ll bother with that either. Luckily, I have a functioning LP turntable to play them on. I also have a computer gizmo Jean bought me several Christmases ago that allows me to transfer the sound on vinyls to MP3 files in my computer. From here, I can burn CDs with a program in my computer. But I realize I will not live long enough to transfer all my vinyls to CD, even if I wanted to.

In a rack on the wall beside my computer desk is a collection of some 120 tape cassettes, mostly from the 1970s and 1980s, put together by Jean and me. Some of them are family tapes. Luckily, I have four functioning tape decks we can play them on. I can also feed one of the decks into my computer which has a program to convert the tape sound to MP3 files, and thence to aforementioned CDs. I actually began doing this quite a few years ago, and have transferred most of the tapes to CD. So I´ve lived long enough to do that.

We have four functioning TV sets, the most recent of which is a small LCD set. The others are all CRTs. The set we watch most in our living room is a splendid 27-inch Sony Trinitron CRT bought in 1993. We have a tiny (5-inch) black and white set in our kitchen, bought in the early 1980s. Works admirably. So does the colour Sony.

Our son has a new 54-inch LCD set. The picture is squished. So is the picture in the new monster set in the waiting area of my car dealer´s. So, often, is the picture in the giant LCDs on display at local electronics stores. Plus the screen generates a lot of heat. I don´t think I will bother with that.

Now to this computer. It is an IBM NetVista PC desktop, built like the proverbial brick outhouse and which I bought in 2001. Runs on Windows Millenium Edition. IBM no long markets personal computers, and WinMe is no longer supported by Microsoft. I have updated all the programs I can that will run on WinMe. The only next step available is to buy a new computer, which will have to run on Windows Vista. My kids and a lot of the computer gurus on the Internet say Windows Vista stinks. Plus my programs and hardware (printer and scanner) will likely not run on Vista. So I don´t think I will bother with that - until I absolutely have to.

Our one and only provincial daily newspaper available here recently discontinued its weekly printed TV guide magazine, and contracted out the listings business to an online company. There are still daily listings in the paper (which we long ago gave up reading on a daily basis) and hourly listings on our cable channel, but if we want to know what´s coming up next day or next week, we are directed to the online version.

It is, of course, almost impossibly difficult to navigate, and for portability, transfers paper and ink costs from the newspaper to the consumer. I don´t think I will bother with that, either. Luckily, our little community weekly still prints a week´s supply of basic TV listings - so far, anyway.

In short, I am surrounded now by long-obsolete but still functioning artifacts that were wonders in their time. I think that before too long, the electronic revolution is going to come to a slow but inexorable halt for me.

Luckily, we have a good library here stocked with real books, and radio is still more or less what it has always been. We don´t personally own any stocks, and were among the 59% who voted in our federal election. And there is Barack Obama to look forward to and the reopening of the Canadian Parliament.

Verda Cook adds to the advice about keeping over your

AMARYLLIS

Your advice on the care of the amaryllis is very good with two exceptions. I sincerely hope you will not mind if I give you two more crucial points for success with these beautiful bulbs.

When repotting the bulb, do not place the bulb in a larger pot. They like to have their roots crowded, or as we say in the horticultural industry, they like to have a tight shoe. Secondly, do not plant the bulb deeply. At least one-third of the bulb should be above the ground. Keeping these in mind, the bulb should reward you for several years.

If the roots become so extensive that they simply will not fit in the pot, use a pot that is only one size larger, e.g., an 8" pot should replace a 7" pot, which will keep the roots crowded.

SURVEY RESULTS

Of those of you who wrote to express a preference for either plain text or rich text in the Tale Spinner, eleven opted for plain text; four preferred rich text; and three did not care which it was so long as it arrived on time. On the basis of that vote, I have decided to continue to send it in plain text. For those who prefer rich text, I suggest you look at the online editions, which in addition to being more readable than the e-mail issues, often have added pictures, and in Jay´s case, sometimes embedded videos.

The URLs again: http://members.shaw.ca/vjjsansum/ orhttp://nw-seniors.org/stories.html

On another subject entirely, I wish to thank all of you who remembered my birthday so kindly. On Wedsday I celebrated my 87th, which I find hard to believe, but which I brag about anyway, as if it were a remarkable achievement. May you all live as long, and longer!

Shirley Conlon forwards this story of an unusual reason for

PHONING IN SICK

We´ve all had trouble with our pets from time to time, but I don´t think anyone can top this one:

Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate my excuse, I always get the feeling that my boss thinks I´m lying.

On one recent occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway, because the truth was just too darned humiliating. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury, and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I reasoned, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on the top of my head. The accident occurred mainly because I had given in to my wife´s wishes to adopt a cute sweet little kitty.

Then one morning, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen. "Honey! The garbage disposal is dead again. Please come reset it.´"

"You know where the button is," I protested through the shower pitter- patter and steam. "Reset it yourself!"

"But I´m scared!" she persisted. "What if it starts going and sucks me in?"

There was a meaningful pause and then she yelled back, "C´mon, it´ll only take you a second."

So out I came, dripping wet and butt naked, hoping that my silent outraged nudity would make a statement about how I perceived her behaviour as extremely cowardly.

Sighing loudly, I squatted down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing.

It struck without warning, and without any respect to my circumstances. No, it wasn´t the disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, who discovered the fascinating dangling objects she spied hanging between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I reached under the sink. And at the precise moment when I was most vulnerable, she leaped at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws. I lost all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements, blindly rising at a violent rate of speed, with the full weight of a kitten hanging from my masculine region.

Wild animals are sometimes faced with a "fight or flight" syndrome. Men in this predicament choose only the "flight" option. I know this from experience. I was fleeing straight up into the air when the sink and cabinet bluntly and forcefully stopped my ascent.

The impact knocked me out cold! When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me. Now there are not many things in this life worse than finding oneself lying on the kitchen floor butt naked in front of a group of people. Even worse, having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics were all snorting loudly as they tried to conduct their work, all the while trying to suppress their hysterical laughter ... and not succeeding.

Somehow I lived through it all. A few days later I finally made it back in to the office, where colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me about my head injury. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk about, which it was.

"What´s the matter?" they all asked. "Cat got your tongue?"

If they only knew!

SUGGESTED SITES

For a video about Kiva, an agency that makes it possible to make micro-loans to your choice of small entrepreneurs in developing countries, many of them women, see http://www.vimeo.com/2769845

Starting with only seven loans in 2005, in 2008 Kiva loaned over $50 million to over 390,000 borrowers, helping them to raise themselves out of poverty. If you have only a small amount to lend, it will be added to others to give entrepreneurs the desired loan, which will be repaid. You can then re-lend it or redeem it. This is a great way to help people without breaking your budget.

So many people have sent me posts about a new virus that I think most of you must have already seen it. However, to check on what has been called the Obama Acceptance Speech Virus, go to

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/obamaspeech.asp

Gerrit de Leeuw forwards the url for another story of an unusual friendship:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4696315n

Tom Williamson suggests this site, in which four women sing about the campaign of "old fat naked women for peace":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINStsPwgQ4

Tony Lewis reminds of this video about forwarding e-mails:

http://info.org.il/irrelevant/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf