It could be said, as I am writing this, I am not sitting here doing nothing. But this is a poor substitute for being utterly lazy.

I normally find the winter is my busy time, both physically and mentally. But that just hasn’t happened this year.

Normally, I plan to do things – but that hasn’t really happened as the goal has been to clear the mortgage, so life has felt a little, well, paused.

The end is indeed drawing nigh, in three months time, we should have made the last payment. Reasonably, my husband asked what I was going to do with the spare money in July?

Good question. The thing is, I don’t know. I’ve stopped wasteful spending and, to be honest, like the fact I’m not buying more clutter to fill up our home. I enjoy my home cooking having got the basics mastered and that has made a stunning difference to my blood glucose levels, waist line, as well as our wallets.

The house is well cared for; yes, the windows that were put in do need replacing – we’re considering triple glazing. Not cheap, so not a rush out and do the second the mortgage is paid off. The kitchen units could also do with laying out differently. The bathroom has the same issue. In price order, the bathroom is the cheapest, then the windows, then the kitchen. So that is likely to be the order.

Of course, planning things in helps. I did that on Sunday. Monday, I stuck to the plan. Tuesday, I rested. Up to a point, that’s the aim of this break: to gently catch up on the house hold chores, take stock, and chill.

But it is such hard work!

We have to go back a couple of years now, to when the “energy crisis” first hit. Our electricity was locked but the smart meter reader we had in the house didn’t even have that latest report on it, so the price doubling per unit had no reflection to what our “smart meter” was reporting to us.

I’d tried various forums looking at how to update the device. To no avail.

Today is my first day off for a long while and I’m having a bit of a decluttering day today (tomorrow and Wednesday to be honest, I’ve got a bit behind…)…

Are you going anywhere useful with this?!

OK, so first things first, I start to move the useful electrical devices we have in an open shelving unit. The first of these being our smart meter reader (also called a IHDU). Now, the batteries have obviously died, so unplugging it cause the power supply to “reboot” the device. And when it came back up, it had the right tariff for both Gas and Electric.

Doh!

Wait a *ing minute, this is more than my bill says the charge is per unit?

Agreed, but then the bill is pre-VAT. Add the VAT at 5% (for fuel charges) and the price is what it should be.

Doh!

I was a little quiet last week, my apologies. Now, no-one died or found out some terrible news, but while at my diabetic screening, I left my phone behind and someone took it with them.

Thankfully, I realised within 30 minutes and had all my financial business sorted out not much later.  I keep a spare phone, while not fully functional, it meant my CGMS only dropped a few hours of data (old phone had a completely flat battery).

One of the things I lose as a type 1 diabetic is the ability to trade in my old phone.  Thankfully, this doesn’t happen to me that often, but I cannot be without the communication device.  Having a phone that my CGMS software is happy to run on is invaluable, worth considerably more than £450.

Unfortunately, while I’d only had my S23 Ultra 9 months, it is no longer available 🙁  More over, the obvious replacement is not yet available.

That wasn’t the only loss that week – my husband managed to drop my ancient Kenwood Chef and it very much looked like it couldn’t be resurrected.  I did very well, I did not cry or shout, but it did feel very much like losing a trusted confidant – this robot had helped me through Covid and beyond, enabling us to enjoy simple food when all we could get were the raw ingredients.

With the focus on shifting the mortgage, I was not planning on replacing the old one any time soon and it is not a decision to be made lightly, so when my husband said, I’ll cough-up and cover it, the decision took 45 minutes to make and that was with some consultation.

Of course, salvaging the parts that could be reused freed the mechanisms and it sprang back to life the next day.  Ooops.

As I said, no-one has died, this has all just been a massive waste of effort trying to get back where we were.  (Can I say the new mixer is really good, so much quicker and quieter than the old one.  If the bread maker ever dies, it could directly replace it too, albeit with significantly more hassle).

I have the next two weeks off work, and that home cooking thing is what I love doing.

Getting a new phone is not going to be anything like as straightforward…

For many, I don’t count as being disabled. The fact I lost use of my beta cells that mean, without subcutaneously delivered insulin, I would die.

Now, my insulin is not delivered in the same way as a non-type 1 diabetic. I programme in my basal to make use of the stores in my body I release to power my body – just as those stores would be released if I wasn’t type 1. When I eat, I have to give extra insulin to make use of the energy – whether that energy comes from protein, fat, or carbohydrates (that’s sugars in common parlance).

Like anyone else’s body, I am not fussy about what I convert into usable blood glucose – what’s different about me is the fact I am getting my insulin in a form that lasts a long time. Which means, if I get it wrong, I have no safety net – the numbers are big enough that my body can’t necessarily do everything I need to pull me back out of trouble.

Each morning, I make some fundamental choices on my pump, forming a base plan on which I base the rest of my decisions – if I get that right, I don’t have do much other than get my boluses right. If not, my foundation is a disaster and it’s very much like living in an active earthquake zone…

Yesterday, I got it pretty much perfect – 24 hours in zone. Today, was not so easy. I’m only 5% out of range, but as a result, everything hurts, including my head and it has been a battle to get that good a result.

Why not use a hybrid loop pump, is that better than you?

To be honest, yesterday, I didn’t use the control loop at all – 100% in range. Today I did and at least one high and one low were caused by the hybrid loop. It leaves me to pick up the mess.

Despite that, not everyone sees me as being disabled. In fact, the tech makes people believe “type 1 isn’t really a problem anymore” is something I hear many times a month.

Grrr…

We don’t say to migrane sufferers that have painkillers or have identified their triggers. So why do we say this about type 1 diabetes that is a complex condition that expects the people who have it to replace a highly difficult function in the body to mimic?

let’s face the music and dance. As the song goes.

The past financial year has seen many companies look at their books and make some key investments in AI and future proofing their industries.  America and Europe have seen a similar climb to the UK, leading to wage increases unseen for nearly fifteen years, when the banking crises hit the global economy bank in 2008.

Redundancy rates are rife in many industries, while vacancies are looking for people who can hit the ground running.  Companies are struggling to protect work forces and customers.  Times are still tough and likely to remain so entering the new financial year.

All companies are looking at their costs and seeking ways to ensure they can maintain growth in a smaller and harsher economic environment.

So it seems odd that the UK government is choosing now to lower national insurance rates.  This weird tax in the UK was designed to fund the NHS and the welfare pot.  You had insurance, while working, to pay for health-care, etc.

No-one enjoys paying tax, but many in the UK feel a bit cheated as the government is funding less and life is harder, while not asking the rich to pay.  More importantly, by maintaining income tax thresholds where they were three years ago, is moving the tax burden more on to the young and less comfortable in society.

Economically, I’m right wing: I would like the government to own natural monopolies and maintain infrastructure and provide welfare and opportunities for education.  That means the people most able, need to pay taxes.   What I’d really like is an honest and morally incorputable government making the best decisions of the world country.

Times may be tough, but is not that how it should be?

I’m sitting watching the rain come to a stop on a cold March day in the UK. The sun is making an appearance and, for the time being, I am waiting for the miracle that is fiasp insulin to work its magic.

I’d had a good day yesterday with the insulin I’d programmed in a few months ago for this stage in my menstrual cycle, and the bolus decisions I’d made for the food I’d eaten all came to fruition. I was a little heavy handed for my evening bolux but on spotting that early still scored a respectable 99% time in range.

The night was even better, little variance over the period. I’d cleaned up the house and walked into town. The exertions meant I was a little low, but no biggy, I had emergency rations with me and treated appriotely. The low hid the fact that my cannula had stopped functioning about 10am in the morning. My blood sugar started soaring at 12:27 and by 12:57 it was obvious walking back home was not an option.

I’m lucky, I could afford to take a taxi back home, I stripped off my rain soaked outer clothing and less than 4 minutes later was admistering insulin through a newly inserted cannula. Of course, even an insulin analague takes time to lower blood glucose down from 3 hours worth of missed insulin doses, but 90 minutes later it is all looking good. I wait until we’re back down to 10mmol/l before working out how much I’ve potentially over treated and then compensate with the minimal amount of carbohydrates to ensure I won’t be hypo the rest of the afternoon.

I’m often told that as a “good diabetic”, a compliant diabetic, a diabetic who is “really well controlled” that I am not disabled. I do not incur costs related to my disability and I do not have anything “holding me back”. Technology is going to make my “burden less”.

Do not get me wrong, the fact I could see my blood sugar rise from 3.4 to 16 mmol/l in less than 45 minutes meant I knew what was happening, but given the cannula had failed, nothing was going to stop that happening.
I’m still disabled. I still have to wait for the subcutaneous insulin to do its thang and because this is an “unexpected event” this is not something I can leave to the hybrid loop to sort out. If it sees too much insulin on board, it will shut off the temporary correction I need to bed in the new cannula for a few hours and I cannot have it work out that is not a good thing.

So, please stop telling me it is going to be so much better because of the technology. I have a splitting headache caused by interrupted insulin infusion and a blood sugar 4.3 times higher than a none diabetic and it isn’t because “I’ve done the wrong thing”. My cannula should have been good until 9am tomorrow.

I’m still disabled, life is still not the same as it would be with type 1 diabetes.  I do incur monetary costs because of that disability.

Taking advantage of a discount and the fall out.

My husband has an interesting package with his job and after asking both me and our son if we wanted to take part in a small experiment, our grown son finally said yes.

To give a little background, I first met my husband before it was found that stomach ulcers were caused by a bacterial infection. I mention this has he had managed to treat a stomach ulcer successfully by moderating his diet for nearly two years. It’s never come back but since the ulcer, his stomach hasn’t really felt right.

Now his work deal was a (controversial) IgG test looking at what you may be reacting to in your diet.

The results duly came back stating that my beloved might benefit by giving cow’s milk, lemon, and eggs a miss and yeast was also in the “best avoided” list. So, Jon is giving it a go.

Unfortunately most of my recipes collected over the past four years contain these three ingredients!

Let’s start over. He can eat gluten, just not yeast => soda bread. Without milk or lemon juice to “activate” the sodium bicarbonate. Tricker but not impossible.

Isn’t it complicated enough with your thing going on?

Life never promises to be uncomplicated.

As you say, cooking from scratch has taught me a great deal about several foods.

Carbohydrate wise, pizza and french dough does not have extra sugar added to get the yeast going. French dough takes a long time to cure to get a similar rising to “English” bread. Ciabatta has more sugar added than an English loaf.

Pizza dough (used for pizza, garlic bread, and dough balls) takes 45 minutes to rise. Both french bread and pizza dough needs far less insulin to use.

Pizza is a little awkward because it has a great deal of cheese, typically. This means it has a really long bolus requirements. Dough balls don’t.

I’ve had ciabatta a couple of times – it not only requires a great deal of insulin but its fat content means a longer bolus as well. Let’s just say, I avoid it like the plague.

Soda bread, because it uses weak flour, is actually a great bolus pattern. For the weekend, it might be a great option for me.

So are you doing the IgG test?

No. I definitely benefit from having breaks from bread every so often, and I get clues when that’s coming up. I know about the aspartame.

I’m obviously not allergic to anything. I think I’d rather not know…

When I was diagnosed diabetic, one of my parents’ concerns was if I’d get to have children.

As a young child, with a mum and dad who didn’t spend much time at home while they were growing up due to going to boarding schools, they didn’t have much of a social life outside of work. Few of their friends had children.

I did not feel a social pressure to have kids as a kid but it was a vague idea. I was absolutely certainly I didn’t want to be having kids when I was past 30 – at that age, I’d have had type 1 diabetes for 26 years and that didn’t seem a viable option.

I’d spent a great deal of time travelling round the country for work before I got to university. Many of the men I dated seemed to want to get married. Getting married wasn’t really an ambition either (I am coming up to my 25th^th wedding anniversary this year). I’d dated and did feel quite sad when things ended, but it wasn’t love in those cases. My husband is the only man I’ve cared about enough to argue with.

The travelling (and dating) made me want my own home. I didn’t go on holidays or buy flash toys and cars. I bought my house as a singleton in 1998. It was near my family, as mum had promised to help if I had children – both my parents were still working when I had my son.

Of course, life happens around plans. My pregnancy was not the joyous experience we’d waited two years for: an ovarian cyst meant it was painful for the majority of the time. We’d also bought a house 8 weeks before our kid was born in another village. Whihc meant my savings were not going to cover a year – my savings were swallowed up in the move. My granddad also had a stroke.

So my folks went from looking after their grandchild for a day down to nothing. Indeed, we my grandfather died moved 45 miles, but 124 minutes journey away.

I was lucky, my childminder was able to pick up the extra day.

And here we are.

Yawn, so what? You’re a boomer…

No, I’m a gen Xer, I just happened to do the kid thing early. I did get sterilised when my son was 4. This shocked my friend, who ended up having three kids: the doctors agreed to that? Type 1 diabetic, I have had a child, I knew what I was asking for and, long term, it would have been much cheaper and less impact on my body. My husband wasn’t even there for the conversation though he did chat to the obstetrician on the phone.

If you are not diabetic, women do not seem to be allowed to do this, even if their partner feels the same way. This seems bizaare: pregnancy and childbirth are not trivial processes to go through.

Of course, my friends are not the only people not having children. The number of births last year per woman went down to 1.6 children in the UK. I was considered a little young at 27 when I was doing this long task, the majority of new mums are in their late thirties.

At least we’ve done our bit.

My son has no plans of having children, it’s so far off his radar as to be unviewable. House prices had trebled since I bought my house as a junior manager, and wages have not yet doubled. Doing this on his own is not an option.

Childcare costs have more than trebled in the time. Quid pro quo, only young adults with private income can hope to have a chance of having young while they are young.

Because their 60 year old parents are still working and likely to be for the next decade. Unless they are rich and actually, they are the people with the interesting jobs…

We’re so obsessed with older people “earning their keep”, the young are ending up not having jobs.

In the meantime, while interest rates have gone up, house prices haven’t deflated because if you have a job, you cannot afford to move.

The people having child tend to be in bigger, nicer houses, so are using flexi-time to perform their own child-care.

Being disabled, it wasn’t an option for me. I would have been doing two jobs badly. It was hardwork anyway, but I can see why many are delaying the start.

Oh yeah, what should we be doing then?

The minimum wage works here. A parent has enough to live on while the other can earn a bit more than they’d have staying at home.

More importantly, gran and gramps can take that dip in pay to help out. This is what happen for my folks when my brother and I were babes and for a few months, helped me and family.

That reduces the need for as much paid for childcare, which allows the prices to drop. This works.

It works at another level too. Life is difficult with young children if you work and don’t have a car. The costs of housing and childcare mean those having children benefit from having two cars, and best will in the world, a push bike with a kid larger than a baby is very hard work. This is a nightmare for the environment – I have never done as many miles as I did when my son was below 12 and we had full time jobs.

The Bank Rate or the rate of interest charged by the Bank of England is important news, but as a history buff, when I sat down and worked out what it would cost me to buy a house I used a rate of 19%.

Why? I remembered seeing this as an advertised rate for a mortgage in Feburary 1991. The base rate at the time was 13.38%, but building societies often add 6% or so to their rates.

When I finally took out a mortgage in 1997, the base rate was 7% and I got a deal for 5.25% for 2 years, but I still worked out against that larger base rate, just in case the worst happened.

The Bank of England publishes this data at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp . You can see from here that the peak has been 17% in November 1979. Our current deal is 3.49% on top of the base rate => 20.49%, so actually the 19% wasn’t a bad worst case scenario.

Why are you talking about doom and gloom, surely this is terrifying some people out there?

That is not my intention. It’s just we’ve been very lucky the past few years with interest rates being so low and I am sure for many, it’s a nasty shock.

For me, it was an “OK, let’s take stock” moment rather than “let’s make a budget”.

Our plan has always been to pay off the mortgage as quickly as we can. Equity is only equity if you have no debts.

Which will leave us in a different situation once the deed is done.

I am lucky to have a full state pension and a 20 year BT pension (although my earnings weren’t that great, it is index linked). If I die, half of these will go to my spouse. These are not touched with a ten foot barge pole.

Like everyone in the country, I can have an ISA. While in debt, I didn’t do this but I was spending more than £20K per annum on my mortgage, so that’s a no brainer. I’m tempted to do three cash ones then some stock market ones.

Beating inflation

Saving rates never match borrowing rates. Full stop. So, any investments really need to earn more than inflation to be worthwhile.

Which is the game.

Of course, there is also liquidity. I’m over 50 and have 16 years before I can draw my state pension. I need to be able to feed, clothe, and run my house.

If I can save £20k per annum, I can live pretty comfortably off that, if I need to, even with inflation at 4%.

Of course, if I can maximise my earning potential over the next five years, that’s got to be key too. It would allow me to down shift when I get to 60.

That’s kind of what it’s all about. A big safety net, if we need it.

Thankfully, I got a whole seven and half hours sleep last night and finally got my blood sugar behaving itself.  Looks like the bug is on its way out, I now get to recover.  I’m taking a couple of days to gently get back some stamina before starting work again – the idea is not to go back too early and find I am then not fully recovered.

Hopefully, that’s a reasonable course of action.  If only foresight was as good as hindsight!

Yawn, is this just about being old?

Cheeky.

Now, I’ve been finding out about the freely available smart data available in the UK from a company called n3rgy.

Simply register your meter with its MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number for electricity meters or MPRN for gas which is the Meter Point Reference Number) and its IHD MAC (the in-home display access point number).

Eh?

The MPxN is found on your bill – this is how the power generators and resellers get to bill you.

The IHD is a second look up.  If you have both gas and electricity, you only need the electricity one to get access through n3rgy.

It’s a lot of scribbling down long reference numbers but once registered you can get your browser to remember these for you.

Then the fun begins.

OK, I’m intrigued: how so?

You can download your meter data.  For gas, this forms two sheets, one with the tariff (largely blank for Ovo users), and the other with your consumption in cubic meters…

Hold on, m³?  Aren’t we billed in kWh?

Oh yes.  Naturual gas is not measured in kWh but in the volume of gas delivered.  This then has a calorific (power) value multiplied to it and a conversion to kWh and a correction (wobble) factor.  The calorific value varies day to day and is available from https://www.nationalgridgas.com/data-and-operations/calorific-value-cv but an average of 40 works quite well.  (This website is going to take some figuring out to get the data for us out, but there is a great deal of information out there.)

The electricity is all a bit easier seeing as a kWh is just what the meter is measuring and there’s none of these extra steps.

The really interesting thing is you can see what is really happening.  During the winter, unsurprisingly, the V2G is not coming to the fore overnight.  The windy nights we’ve had recently mean there is plenty of wind power – upto 60% – and a small amount of solar, meaning only 1.3% of our electricity in the East of England is coming from buring gas as I type this.

Which is really hopeful in allowing the UK to reduce its carbon footprint for energy generation, making the move to electric vehicles much better all round too.

If we could recharge me as easily, life would be pretty good.