Tuesday Twaddle

I almost missed the anniversary of starting Past Imperfect – six years ago, January 14th to be exact.  One of my better moves – thanks #1son (have a Happy Silver Wedding anniversary in Antigua), and all the many bloggers who encouraged and helped me.

Whilst I think of it – norovirus – seems to be popping up all over the place – our hospital has closed wards a number of times lately and hotels and cruise ships are particularly vulnerable.  Here’s what Gill Charlton said in Telegraph travel:

Norovirus is contracted by touching surfaces such as stair rails, lift buttons and salad servers which have been infected by a previous user.  Another common way to catch the virus is to shake hands with someone who has recently coughed into their hand.

The best way to avoid catching norovirus is to be scrupulous about hand hygiene. Wash your hands for at least 10 seconds in soap and warm water before eating anything.  Steer clear of open buffets or take food from the back of the dish.

Most importantly buy a bottle off Boots Anti-Viral Hand Foam which is alcohol free and manufactured by Byotrol.

When the Holland America cruise line introduced a trial of this hand sanitizer on its ships, it found that norovirus all but disappeared.  It works much more effectively than traditional sanitizers because as well as killing germs on your hands, it gives an ongoing protection against 99.9% of viruses and bacteria for up to 6 hours

I have always leaned towards Lady Macbeth as far as hand washing is concerned but this sanitizer is top of my shopping list.  Let’s hope they don’t run out of the stuff.

On Sunday night I watched an episode of Call the Midwife, it has an excellent cast and the voice of Vanessa Redgrave as the mature Jenny.  Jennifer Worth was a midwife in London’s East End in the fifties and she chronicles life as it was then for the poor in Dockland with its seamy underbelly of brothels, the Kray brothers and flea- infested slums.  I found it to be true to the essence of the book and Miranda Hart the comedy actress is a delight as Chummy aka Camilla, Fortescue Cholmely-Browne who can’t ride a bike for toffee and is always knocking things over.

In fact the author wrote to Miranda and told her she envisaged her in the part.  It is just so sad that Jennifer died last July aged 75 before she could see the TV version.  The remaining four episodes are on my must- see list.

Immediately after that came the first episode of Birdsong Sebastian Faulk’s love story set in WW1.  I seem to remember finding the book a little disjointed and found the TV version the same with its flitting from the gruesome trench warfare to the lyrical love scenes in the Amiens country-side, without warning.  And I found the long lingering shots on the hero and heroine – beautiful as they are –interminable.  It must be a very difficult book to film, I thought Joseph Mawle as Jack Firebrace was excellent and will certainly watch the final episode next Sunday  BBC1 9pm.

Looking at photos of hamamelis - witch hazel, my version seems to be named Orange Peel and they say smells of marmalade.  The scent is much more exotic then marmalade IMO, but there is a clean citrussy kick