HOMAGE TO LORD SUGAR AND HIS AMSTRAD COMPUTERS.

      Having downloaded  Lord Alan Sugars book just out, ‘What you see is what you get’, onto my latest tablet computer sporting ‘Kindle’ its contents reminded me of my early assays into computing and the fact that without the then Mr. Alan Sugar I would not have had two books published nor have a very full computer life in my 75th year.

      My first introduction to using a computer was as an input operator in St Thomas’ hospital in London in the mid ‘70s. My terminal was all one piece connected to a giant mainframe computer locked away in the bowels of the hospital. Slow was not the word I would have used to describe the turn over rate, sometimes one would input a few details, press ‘Return’ and have time to do a full manicure. Having been a pretty poor typist I found the fact that you could undo and redo fantastic. If ever they bring out a computer to use at home, I declared to my husband, I am going to have one.

                            Me on my first computer at the hospital

        Home computers did appear but were way beyond my financial reach even if I had got to the giddy heights of £20.00 a week. A good wage for a woman in those days. Circumstances changed and it was many years before I heard about the Amstrad 8512 called by everyone ‘A Word Processor’. By this time I had moved to Devon and I knew I had to find a job to save up to buy one. Work was hard to come by and I managed to find a part time job in a pie factory. Six months later I had enough and with my husband went into Exeter to buy my first computer.

       I loved it – Locoscript, floppy discs and all. In no time I was writing articles, books, and much more. I had always did like writing but my typing and spelling were awful. I joined the local writing circle and sometime later I started writng a book that I managed to get published. At this time I became interested in Numerology and thinking it needed a hand book the ordinary person could follow I wrote that too. This I had published by Thorsons of Harper Collins. I am afraid that was the height of my 15 minutes of fame.

       I went on to use the ‘word processor’ to publish a local magazine and edit a national club’s magazine. I wanted to move onto a better computer and bought a 2000 Amstrad series. This was the computer that bombed for Amstrad although I found it fairly OK. It was a little light on power but it did have a Windows program on it. We tried it and sent a short letter to the printer. We sent it and sent it – until three a.m. when we gave up and sat taking for ten minutes. Then lo and behold – it printed! Windows came off and we went back to Locoscript. I even started a Numerology business sending out readings that I printed on the computer.

      Later we bought more and more powerful computers, not Amstrad. I even had a business teaching people Windows and Word. We are still very computer minded and have several different kinds around the house and touch screen phones that work like computers. Not bad for a 75 year old. Many thanks Lord Sugar, without you I could not do the computer art I enjoy so much – and a bit of blog writing now and then. Thank you.
      Some of my computer art. More on http://www.flickr.com/photos/philipjulie/

Another Operation

I've had another operation, gallbladder this time. At least it is not in an embarrassing place this time. A modern keyhole surgery op as well. I am supposed to get better quicker and the anesthetics are so much better as well. I used to feel like I was a piece of silver paper being crushed and thrown out of my body but now you just drift off to sleep. Wonderful and very little after effect. I don't know if I am getting better any quicker as I am in quite a lot of pain at the moment, sitting up from lying down is the worst. Best of all it was day surgery and I was home that day.
I have no complaints about our health service I personally think we are so, so lucky to have it. The people who looked after me on my day in hospital could not have been better or kinder, Thank you to all of them in day surgery, Torbay Hospital, Devon.

Battle of Britain Memories

I was only five but yes, I do remember the Battle of Britain in the air. I remember watching vapour trails and hearing the wine of planes chasing each other and having 'Dog Fights'. I was in Kent and it all went on overhead. I suppose I heard many thongs said by the adults in the family.


One Sunday we were all gathered at my Grandfather's house when a deep noise was heard of hundreds of German bombers coming over us. They reached from horizon to horizon and the men said things like

'London has had it this time'

Me on the terrace that Sunday

The droning noise gradually went away and I and my young cousins were allowed out of the Morrison table shelter. The noise started again but with the added whine of the fighters and bangs and crashes. Back under the table we went but the men of the family wanted to look so my memories were through them. They shouted and cheered for ages and watched planes coming down with trailing black smoke. My French Grandmother went hysterical trying to make them come indoors but they stayed out on the terrace for a long time. Eventually they gave in as shrapnel, shell cases and bombs began to rain down. Later we heard a nearby woof of a close bomb, no noise if it was close. And it certainly was. We were told later that a bomb had been watched coming right down on our house but a something made it turn and hit a house two doors up the road.

The next day the garden was filled with bits of metal any which could have kill somebody out there. Grandma was right. The formation so uniform in going to London came back in every direction chased by Spitfires and I suppose Hurricanes. So my memories are more of the sounds but I had a glimpse of those German bombers going to London before Grandma dragged us indoors.

Singing Wires

Today we were bowling along our local bit of the moteway and the air passing over the roof rack of our car reminded me of the noise one used to hear in telegraph wires. A soft moaning whine that rose and fell with the wind passing though the banks of wires. Today there are no more than two or three wires and mostly just one. But the old telegraph posts held multi wires.

I particularly remember them during the war when, with my mother, we were sent to Devon for a rest from the bombing. There was nothing to do in the daytime except go for walks. Many lanes had telegraph wires running beside them and in that very cold winter the wind howled enlessly.  I loved the singing wires although I was only four years old I can still remember and hear them.

Red Buttons

“I’m going to watch Red Button” said my husband as I disappeared upstairs to have a rest and write this blog  first. ‘Red Buttons’ the thought of an American comedian flashed through my elderly mind and I failed to see what he was going to watch that would amuse him. A funny man with red hair that appeared in every film at one time, not my husband’s sort of thing at all.


“What?” I asked stopping for a moment on the stairs.

“Red Button.” He replied to his non comprehending wife whose mind had regressed 30, 40 or more years.

“Grand Prix on the red button channel.”

“Ah!”  Comprehension dawned and I came back to the present.

I went to the internet on my notebook and looked up Red Buttons. Yes I was right, there had been such a comedian but I am not sure if it is the one I remember. He wore loud silly clothes and acted sort of clownish. This one had been an actor in many things quite serious. He died fairly recently. Something seems to stick in my mind that he did some film or show with Lucille Ball – another one now gone.

It is quite frightening to hear of all these names one knew in younger days passing on but I generally find they were some ten or more years older than me. When I was young people found fame usually passed their flush of youth and had to pretend to be younger in their films. Now the young get fame so early in life they are quite often forgotten before they are thirty. They turn up as ‘Grumpy Old men – or women’ and you think ‘my God, you’ve aged quickly’. I am so glad I am known by no one. Where the young crave ‘Fame’ I crave anonymity. Hence I write a blog that no one reads, not even my friends or probably my own relations.
Hey Ho!

The eggs in the microwave day

A few days ago I had what is now referred to as a ‘senior moment’. Not at all surprising as last May I turned 75. I hard boiled four eggs for our lunch, put them under the cold tap, tapped them to let the air out, they shell more easily then, and put them in a dish in the fridge. Come lunch time I go for the eggs and they just are not there. I looked everywhere, silly places as well as sensible ones. No eggs. Really thought I was losing my marbles. Half an hour later I opened the microwave – yes that’s right, there were my four eggs. I had a good laugh because you have to. Its frightening, very frightening.

Try as you might to put it down to ‘senior moments’ and everyone says ‘oh everybody has those moments, when you clock up over 70 and constantly hear on the news of famous people passing on who are your age, or much younger, you get worried. Is this the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease? Is anybody else noticing your increasing lapses or silly doings? My husband certainly regards me sometimes as if he does. Then the next moment you know you are as completely in control as you have ever been, or at least you seem to be.

Within the last couple of days a new report has come out that we older ones are lacking vitamin D and this can lead to Alzheimers. Get me two packets I cried. Yet I get plenty of sun but apparently our skin does not work properly to make the vitamin. To be honest nothing in my body seems to work properly these days from my digestive system (gall stones is the latest thing I am told I have) my bladder, my knees, shoulder and foot (arthritis) and now my eyes – cataracts coming and a the start of a detached retina. To say I am fed up with this getting old bit is an understatement. But………

I love all this modern stuff, this digital age, just love it. I want to stay around and be compos mentis enough to see all the latest things. All my art is now done on computer see http://www.flickr.com/photos/philipjulie , I Tweet see maybug 74 I have a touch screen mobile phone and use it to go on line, and a notebook. I love the Gadget Show and use the internet on my big computer all the time, be lost without it. Can’t understand how people get on without the internet. Have to be very careful how I talk to people my own age, and a lot younger, who say ‘Can’t be bothered with it’. I feel in touch with the whole world. I have exchanged emails etc. with all kinds of people in many countries and even met one of them when they came to UK from Canada. I have to admit I am not very good at keeping up with them all and rather let them fall into abeyance.

That takes me back to my rant about old age – you see although I am very spry for my age I find I get tired easily these days and the day goes by without me finishing all that I want to do. To often I need a sleep in the afternoon yet I don’t feel granny age inside. Or great granny seeing how young they become grannies these days. I hear it again and again and it is true – you still feel 25 inside – until you can’t find the boiled eggs you put in the microwave instead of the fridge!

My 75th Birthday - Three Quarters of a Century

Well here it is – three quarters of a century – 75 today. Except for arthritis pain and a dickey tummy and getting tired easily I don’t really feel any different to 25. How strange. I have heard people saying that and it is true, inside my mind I don’t feel any different. I do have one exception. I suffer from what is now politely referred to a ‘Senior Moments’. I go to say something and it goes clear out of my head, A word usually. I describe it as – I know its yellow, I know its curved, I know I can eat it but can I say Banana – no I can’t.

Anyway – I have had a day free from being on a perpetual diet. I know, it is supposed to be called an eating plan or at least a healthy way of eating but it isn’t – it’s a diet! Today I had all the things I shouldn’t and I ENJOYED THEM ALL. Tomorrow I will go back to the plan – all except for the little bit of birthday cake left over. Worst of all I have promised myself to not have chocolate which I have allowed myself. Just four bits a day. Then its six and then its more so as usual I will have to give it up all together.

Kim brought me a lovely bunch of flowers and a card, so nice of her.

A Day out on Dartmoor

I was so tired last night I couldn’t have written anything. I had a lovely day being taken out by Sheila in her little car. First we went up onto Dartmoor to a farm shop and café to have lunch. Not much of a farm, just a few animals for people to see, two mini goats who thought I was the cats whiskers, a little cat who’s job it was to welcome everybody, two horses in a field – who were very friendly – and a litter of spotted pigs asleep in a far corner. Not a lamb in site. No not proper farm at all.

But the café and shop were lovely and the food too good. Had a cheese and ham pannini and a home made brownie with coffee served in a cafftia, Afterwards we went up to Haytor and looked around a visitors centre where I bought a little book of walks for P. We walked Sheila’s dog half way up to the Tor but having no stick with me we didn’t climb to the top, too steep. Then we went further up into the moor to Widdicome - yes the one famous for the song – and went to a craft fair then I ate the best home baked scone with cream and jam I have ever had, so light. Another little walk round the village and then a mystery tour for me on some of the back roads of the moor to Mortonhampstead.

On he way back we turned off to Lustleigh and walked down what looked like a foot path which led to some very old cottages and barns. Sheila had been to an art show in one of them and as I tried to see a very old barn closer a lady came out of the cottages who owned it and allowed us in to look. It was 13th century with the lower floor having open bar windows of the original barn for the cattle. Oddly she was American and had been in this country for 30 years. It was too dark by then to get a good photo but she said they were having another art show soon so we might go back and I could get one then.

After that we came home and looked at the pictures we had taken over a cup of tea and I showed Sheila my new art work on computer which she loved and P showed her his new camera. I haven’t had a day like that for years! Lovely.

Just Updateing

I haven't writen anything here for ages but I am still around..

Been keeping a very weather eye on the doings at Westminster. I just wish it could be sorted. I don't remember being as interested in anything like this before. Must be my age.

No Vapour Trails!

Today has been an unusual and strange experience – there have been no vapour trails in the sky which has been absolutely cloudless and blue, blue, blue, blue.… from horizon to horizon. The sea here in Devon was equally blue beneath in this azure day: like something on the south Mediterranean coast. I usually see vapour trails rising above one particular tree, they come one after the other and turn slightly in direction at a certain point. I think they come from Spain. The sky on a clear day is always criss crossed with long streaks of cloud. Sometimes in high pressure they disappear in a few minutes. On other days they widen out and gradually drift away with the wind.
But today was different. No Con trails, that is what we called them in the war time. I remember seeing the trails left in the sky after the famous few fought their battles. In my life there have always been vapour trails in the heavens but not today and maybe, just maybe, not tomorrow either.

Training for Sports Relief walk

I did my Treadmill 30 mins and other exercises today. My left foot which has athritis in it is hurting tonight so I have gone to bed early to rest it with a heat wrap. I don't think I will train or do a charity walk again. I can walk well with my two new knee joints if I do it within reason. Still I hope I manage the full 6 miles on Sunday.

I will walk to town tomorrow and see how it goes.

Walking

Today I walked a measured 6 miles in 2 hours so I shouldn't let myself down next week on the Sport relief sponsored walk.

Training for Sports Relief

A week today to the Sport Relief run that I am walking – can’t run because of my new knee joints – but six miles walking is near my limit. Particularly as you have to finish by a certain time. Anyway, I have one week of training left. To date for the last six weeks I have walked on my tread mill most days and if not I have walked to town and back or just walked the dog. I have done warm ups and strengthening exercises with weights as well. Most Sundays I have done a six mile walk but with stops for the dog, my husband to take photos and to get a hot chocolate drink as it was so cold. Today I am going on my own and going to try to do the six miles without stopping. But as usual I need to stop into the shops to get something I have forgotten, that’s old age for you.


I shall try to train hard this week and write it up, good and bad. We have raised nearly a third of our target money for the charity. After what Christine Beakly did skiing the channel my six miles doesn’t seem much. I am following Stephen Nolan on 5 Live who is supposed to be training to run the six miles and is over 21 stone. Good luck to both of us!

Unsolved mystries and the German spy/

Radio 5 live tonight is asking about mysteries one has never solved. Mine goes right back to the war time. My mother worked for a German Jew who had escaped just before the war. She had been helped to do so by a Nazi lover. My dad and I, for various reasons, in later years often wondered if she had been a spy. We felt if she had it would have been because of pressure but who knows, it might not. I can’t say how but she had access to knowledge of the troops which were numerous in the town. We never did come to any conclusions. Perhaps it was because dad did not like her very much.

A couple of moans

I didn’t feel like writing anything last night after being told that I have to have another colon x-ray. Anyone who has had one will know what I mean. They are absolutely ghastly.

Didn’t lose any weight this week at slimming club for all the walking and exercise I have done. Must try harder.

Memory of just after the war

Remembered the feeling of walking down Guildford High Street just after the war, realising the war was over and the fear of death any moment had gone. Then there was a big fire somewhere west of London which lit up the whole sky north of Guildford and was just like the red skies we had seen during the bombing of London. It gave everybody the shivers.

The Brown Interview / Sport Relief Walk

Well here goes with my two pennyworth about the Brown interview. Unless they cut it out Brown did not cry. As if the man hadn’t the right to be emotional about the death of his baby, what hell is this world coming t? So his lip trembled, so would yours if you had such a memory. For God’s sake let our politicians be human and have some feeling, we upbraid them often enough that they lack them. I thought he seemed a moderately ordinary, normal person. I liked him personally a bit better than I did, although I don’t always go for his policies or the labour party as it stands today. But it was a good interview and I’m glad we have a good family man in Number 10. I have know worse in there.



Yesterday I walked a measured 6 miles in training for the Sport Relief run (walk for me) and today I had a sore foot where I aggravated my arthritis. So I had a rest today. Only went out to shop and got a new pair of shoes. We went to a new Coffee House in town which was very pleasant. Met someone I new some years ago and caught up on some gossip. Tomorrow got to get on with ironing and making some cards that have been asked for. I do them for charity. By the way you can sponsor me at www.mysportrelief.com/juliephilipshana should you care to.

Weight Gain after Illness

Slimming World night and I had put on one and a half pounds after being ill last week and not keeping track of my food intake. Sh…..!!! I am trying to get off the last few pounds and I keep going backwards and forwards of the same ground. Bit on, take off, put it back on. I must get back to THE PLAN as they call it. It does work if you do it properly as I proved losing three & a half stone. I was size 20 and now size 12.


Had a pep talk from a woman in class tonight who had lost even more than me – which did get me off from having to admit the gain in public – she came from another group and had been one of those women who took up more than one seat on the bus and had one of those after pictures holding out a skirt she used to wear – upmty sizes to big for her. Nice woman and like me does a lot of exercising. I wish more of the members did exercise but although it is encouraged not much is talked about it.



Not thought of things past much today which is a change. Sometimes think I live in my past memories too much. I do try to be with today in as many ways as possible but as you get older yesterday comes more readily to mind than a few hours ago

Sport Relief 6 mile walk - Twitter

Getting cold again just as I want to go out. Worries me after my bad cold. I really got back to my exercises today. I have signed up to do a 6 miles walk for Sport Relief in March and that means I must train. My tread mill works in km so I worked out, with the help of Google, that means 6 mls is about 10 km. I have walked 6 miles quite a few times in the last two years – or at least since I had my last knee joint, but not all in one go, no rest. So I must train because I don’t want to be finishing at midnight. Oh, if you want to sponsor me go to www.mysportrelief.com/juliephilipshana

Got to grips a bit with Twitter yesterday and even left a message for someone I follow. Still don’t understand it too well. I am maybug74 on Twitter and Yarner on You Tube.

The Tread Mill. Memories of Sir Johnny Dankworth

Feeling my age this afternoon. In the morning we had to carve out space to store my new tread mill. For all my protestation that it would fit under the stairs I knew in reality it would not. We live in a tiny modern cottage. In fact many an old cottage would have more room than our house. But I wanted a tread mill with the big computer board so I could read it easily – and I can.
Now the cupboard under the stairs which lead off from our living room, had its wall and door ripped off as soon after we moved in. Making the room more spacious we called it. We then proceeded to fill it with everything we could get in there and more. Shelving, filing cabinets, big plastic boxes and stationary folders. Plus the rubbish. At one time our whole office and computer desk was in there.
Today it had to all come out, be sorted, (Stuff thrown away) new fittings made and finally the great lumbering beast of the tread mill wheeled in. It fits with in and inch of its life and the roller blind, fitted sometime ago to hide the rubbish from the sight of visitors, was pulled down with success. The only thing I can say is that had we left the wall and doors on there would have been no way we could have got the tread mill in there!

Sir Johnny Dankworth

I can’t say I was all that fond of his music, not being a jazz lover, but he will be a sad loss to the world of British music. I have only one memory of him. In about 1955 or so I was in the Air Force stationed in Wales. We all went on a night out to a big dance hall in Porthcawl. Johnny Dankworth’s band was there in the days of ‘The Big Bands’. He had a hit at the time entitled ‘Three Blind Mice’. The only other thing I remember was Cleo Lane had started in 1951singing with the band. We thought her a bit odd as she was not white and they had cut her curly hair so short she looked almost bald. She wore a neon pink full skirted dress, short not long. We didn’t think much of her and never expected her to turn into the famous songtress she did let alone marry Dankworth. But she did both and I am sure that this is a very sad weekend for her and her family. I offer my deepest sympathy.

Pardon me, but which is the real world.

Just listened to Radio 4 ‘How does that make you feel?’ Absolutely brilliant. I wish I could write like that. A counsellor listening to her clients. Amazing to me that much of it seems to stem from the fact that young people want to be ‘Famous’. They needed to be on Television. Has the television now become the ‘real’ world? The real world, the normal world, the one we all live in is too boring. Nothing ever happens – unless it means you are getting on Tele.


I think this even apply to me, a 74 year old, just as much as the young. I have managed to get on the Tele more than a few times in my life, radio as well. Always exciting, makes the pulses race which doesn’t happen much when you are 74.

The last time was on our local Spotlight programme, but hell, its telly isn’t it? And friends would say afterwards “Saw you the other night”. You smile and pretend it was nothing really. Which of course is exactly what it was – nothing. Yet you feel it was because for all of four minutes and a few words you said while you were inside that real world, that box – well thin screen now – you got your four minutes of fame. (How hackneyed that sounds now) You got there and all those people out there didn’t.

No wonder our young are hypnotised with it and think there is no other way to go. That, now I come to think of it, is one reason why the web, the internet has become so popular. For those that don’t make it on to that screen they can have a go for themselves on bloggs (like me) You Tube (like me) and Twitter (Also like me) plus all the other sites. Like them I am hooked. Help!

One Week Wasted?

Its been one week out of the world to me. Not a holiday, not a change, just a nothing week, a wasted week and how many more of those do I realistically have? If I go by my Father – 2 years, if I go by my mother 20 years plus. If it’s the former I have just wasted a week doing nothing but sleep, eat and feel unwell. If the latter – nice to have a good rest. Just wish I could get my energy back. It was only a cold but age disallows a quick recovery.
Watched a TV programme about ageing yesterday, why we age and how. To me it seemed to come down to genes. So with what I related above about my parents – CAN I CHOOSE?

Flu or Cold?

Flu or a cold. Doesn’t really matter, both as bad as each other. Mine can't be flu as I have had the flu jab, I suppose it could be the Swine Varity but no, I think it is just a cold. I am a little better today and had to get my own breakfast in bed, husband gone to work. I was up all day yesterday but did little more than the washing up. I shall get up in a moment but the day is sad with dark rain and the forecast says it will be like that for some days so I certainly won't be going out.
Yesterday I did try to walk for 10.00 min on my new treadmill but only got as far a 8 min when my heart rate went silly and I slowed down to a crawl. I usually do an hours exercise everyday of one sort or another so thought it might pick me up from my doldrums.

I slept well last night so didn't hear anything on my radio except Dr Carl from Australia for a few minutes before I went back to sleep. This morning they are going on about MPs expenses again - Have we forgiven our MPs yet - Not really. I like our MP but now he has been in for a while he has become the 'professional' and is not quite so likeable. He did have to give some money back, which he did immediately, but no duck house and so on. Quite a normal bloke really not like a close neighbouring constituency, some ripe stories going round about him - and he is leaving!

I didn't start voting till quite late in life as I was in the WRAF from the age of 18 and didn't have a place I could call my home constituency. So I was 25, married and with a baby for my first vote. I remember a friend and I chose to have the party we did not like chauffeur us to the polls and back. Made it come up our muddy, unmade up lane to the caravan site where we lived. We were not gypsies but might just as well have been, just the only place we could find to live. Great heavens - that was fifty years ago now. History.

On going Cold

Still fighting my cold this morning. Had a small improvement but still sneezing like mad.
I have a radio on all night with earphones under my pillow so only I can hear it. Its mostly on BBC 5live, BBC World Service and sometimes on BBC Radio 7. Music seems to keep me awake and talking drifts me off to sleep. Trouble is I don't always hear to the end and have to use BBC player to find out what happened.
This morning I woke up to hear them talking about the mydavidcameron.com poster you can change. That sounded like fun so I went and did mine http://twitpic.com/115e8t and put my take on it up on my Twitter. Not very clever but my memories the Tories last time were not very good. Our life went to bits under them and I certainly don't want them back.
But the fact that people can change politicians bland untrue posters is great. I hear some of the big real posters have been changed and have had to be taken down. The nastiest poster the Tories did was the evil eyed Blair - I don't know though - perhaps they got it right. Although I did admire Blair for many things he did take us to war!

Third Day in Bed

I am on me third day in bed where I have my own notebook computer rather than our joint main computer downstairs - and time to write. I had promised myself that I would write more come the new year. Now truly the new year and I have not written one word - till now.
This morning I have got to grips with my Twitter account - still can't work it all out. I have started to follow Stephen Nolan of 5live as he has weight problems like me and he is, like me, trying to get exercising. (I have just bought a motorized treadmill) and is going to do the six mile Sports Relief run. So with my husband and friends so am I BUT I am going to walk it. (Doctors say running is too high impact for my new knee joints.) So if any one wants to sponsor me let me know.

I quite often walk six miles so not too worried, I did a 3 mile walk for cancer research a couple of years ago and could easily have gone round twice, waking not really a problem but running is no longer an option.

As this blog is supposed to come under 'that reminds me'. What does all this take me back to? Being a PTI in the WRAF in the 50s. Probably the source of all my knee trouble now. I wasn't any good at long distance stuff but was a sprinter. We did a hundred yards in those days, not metres. I did hurdles and long jump as well. Never all that good but got to Command level once or twice. To diffused, I think, as I also played tennis, and swam freestroke. But as a PTI one had to be able to do everything and teach it. The one thing I hated was doing and teaching PT to the girls yet in later years, in my 40s, it stood me in good stead as I managed to earn my living by running aerobic classes for a year or so. I had moved to Devon and in London I had just seen the first mass aerobic classes in sports centres. I adapted it and ran 3 or 4 classes for over a year - which really finished of my knee joints good and proper.

Than I got fat with lack of exercise and knees collapsed entirely. New joints over three years and now - I am going to walk the six miles - when my damned cold gives over!!