Apparently there IS a name for it.

I have Philip James to thank for this. I finally have a name for that affliction which strikes me following a shopping expedition. Apparently it is called "Post Traumatic Shopping Disorder".
I do not enjoy shopping. I especially detest shopping for rear paw coverings - shoes. 
The problem was that the shoes I had bought earlier this year, far from being the sturdy things I had been promised, have a hole in them. I have managed, yet again, to put my toes through them. No, don't ask. I just do it. 
The Senior Cat was teaching his young magician so I took the opportunity to prowl off to buy something new. This involves putting the tricycle on the train and going in search of a shop which sells such things. 
I am not fussed about the look. I want something that I can actually wear. Even my good "going out" paw coverings are what I can actually wear. I did tell the shop assistant that I would draw the line at flourescent pink trainers but if it had to be lime green or bright blue I might just...
She produced pink. No. She produced something rather too large. No. She looked at something I knew I would never keep on my paws - and even she shook her head.
I prowled along the shelf. She dug into boxes. 
"These?" she said at last. They are mostly white with a minimal amount of purple "flash". I try them on. They fit. They feel as if they might not fall off if properly laced and tied. 
We look at each other. 
"They're leather," she tells me, "And they're reduced."
Right. She knows how to sell me shoes after all. I buy them.
Two people I know speak to me. They think I am there for the fun of it. I see my aunt. She knows otherwise. 
I go off to catch the train. There are a pile of noisy boys and bikes on the train already. There is also an acquaintance of mine wondering whether he and his wheelchair are going to fit on the train. It is me or him in the space available. I know his wife has to pick him up at the other end so I tell him and the transit officer that I will wait for the next train. It isn't in the least what I want to do as the trains are an hour apart at weekends.
I wait. I knit. I read. I wait. I get on the train. I pedal home at the other end. I get sent "virtual tea" by an internet friend when I prowl in to check the e-mail. 
And, although I hate shoe shopping, I sit there and think how very lucky I am because Post Traumatic Shopping Disorder, is really one of relief it is over. It is not like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which can take years to recover from -  if you recover at all.
It's why I was prepared to wait for that hour. My acquaintance in the wheelchair would have found that wait very, very stressful. He also suffers from PTSD.
 

"The magician in this house...

has gone off for a nap. He has been working hard changing these frogs into chocolate. Please help yourselves - one for each paw!" 
I made the notice up and stuck it to the front door. I put a bowl of chocolate frogs on the mat. I prowled off to catch up on some late e-mail. The Senior Cat read and snoozed.
I heard footsteps and giggles and then silence and then more giggles. Some time later it was repeated and then again. 
I went off to bed to read for a bit but I left the light over the front door on for a while. Parents had warned me "it could be as late as ten" and I knew it might be even later. 
I fell asleep and woke again just after midnight. I crawled out of bed and prowled out to turn the light off. I didn't bother to look until this morning. 
The frogs had gone. The notice had gone too. Stuck on the door there was a note reading,
"The magic stops working at midnight!"
And, in much smaller print, "Frogs have all been adopted equally".
I had added up all the children in the street and the next street. I had multiplied by two and added a few extra. It seems the magic worked about right. 

Going to a funeral

is always a curious experience. The Senior Cat went to one yesterday.
It has reached the point where he can be the oldest person in the church, chapel or other venue. He was yesterday.
He went to the funeral of someone he knew for more years than I have been alive. It's a long time.
He has been rather quiet for the couple of days since learning of his friend's death. It doesn't surprise me. They shared many experiences.
He talked some of them through with me as he made some brief notes to speak, briefly, at the funeral. The Senior Cat does not believe in prolonged speeches at any time. He also wanted to be sure that people would go away thinking well of his friend.
His friend was of Irish extraction. He had a great capacity for what he called "Irish blarney". Yes, he could tell a good story. He was an outstandingly good teacher.
I suspect that, unlike the Senior Cat, he was something of a fish out of water in the small rural community where they first taught together. The Senior Cat knew about rural life through family connections but his friend had always lived in the city. What the community made of him I don't know. He went on to teach in other places. He spent time in New Guinea. He came back and lectured. When he retired at 60 it was only because he was losing his hearing. He found even lecturing tertiary students too much of a strain he found other occupations. None of them lasted long. It was as if he wanted to experience things rather than forge a new career. 
Eventually he did retire. He lived not too far from here. His politics were far left. He would bail me up in the middle of the chemist or the supermarket or the bank and tell me what he thought of my latest letter in the paper. He wrote answers in response to them sometimes. We agreed to disagree. He knew that some of his most outrageous ideas would never work. He would go off and drink coffee with the Senior Cat and complain I was too practical. 
I didn't go to the funeral but I did speak to his eldest child on the phone. We agreed her father had done well. He'd had prostate cancer for more than 15 years and simply refused to give in to that or his increasing deafness or a multitude of other things.
He never gave in to the physical distance between himself and his friends either. If he hadn't seen you for a year then he just quietly picked up the strand between you as if he had seen you yesterday and carried on. It was true friendship.

Returning from overseas travel

is a dislocating sort of experience. 
I have vague memories of this. It is a long time since I have travelled anywhere. The Senior Cat does not want to leave his own bed at night. I can understand that. He has done some travelling in the past and now he wants the comfort of home.
The Little Drummer Boy's family was away for weeks and the two children have found returning to school somewhat difficult. I wonder what the effect of missing nine weeks of school will be?
And our other neighbours have returned from their extended travels in France and Italy. Until yesterday we had only waved to them and exchanged nothing more than "Hello, glad you are back safely". They wandered over late yesterday afternoon to say hello properly. They brought small gifts, an interesting "backyard" picture for the Senior Cat and a curious tea towel for me. V does not intend for me to use it as a tea towel but she thought the weaving was rather nice. It is actually very special jacquard weaving and we agreed it might make a bag rather than a tea towel!
But they were both suffering a sense of dislocation. I know it is partly the jet-lag but it is also that strange sense of walking back into your own home and, having been absent for a time, seeing it with fresh eyes. Everything there is familiar but it is also strange. It is strange but familiar. How do you put that? It is as if you have to reattach yourself to your surroundings. 
We once had neighbours, two spinster sisters, who had multiple passports which were jam packed with stamps of where they had been. They were away at least once every year. They went to places like China before it became a tourist destination. They traversed the high Andes without the help of a tourist guide. They went just about everywhere you can think of apart from the Antarctic. They were real travellers. There were not many souvenirs apart from their scrapbooks of their travels. They went to  find things, see things, talk to the locals where they could. They tried the real local food and lived in the accommodation the locals used.
People used to ask what the point was. They wouldn't have any money left! They didn't have anything to show for it! 
But in their last few years they both seemed content to live with the memories of their travels. The scrapbooks would be open. They would relive their travels over and over again. The youngest child from the other side would wander in and spend hours listening to what they had to say. His school social studies projects were filled with their stories and pictures. He is now an intrepid traveller himself.
And yes, they too had that strange sense of dislocation on return.
"It's as if you don't quite belong anywhere but you belong everywhere," one of them told me.
Is this what they call "itchy feet"? 

Did someone mention manners?

There was an article in the Guardian about "manners". It was written by a young person who seemed to think that manners have changed.
She seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to bypass a restaurant queue and claim to have a reservation - even though you don't.
She seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to see the last available picnic table and run past the group walking towards it just so that you can grab it. Apparently that is "just exuberance".
She seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to answer your phone and send text messages when out to a meal with friends. Apparently we need to "get over it".
Sorry, these things are not acceptable. They are just plain rude. 
The first is also dishonest.
Instead of keeping my thoughts to myself and my paws off the keyboard I wrote a comment. I asked the writer how did she know that the people apparently "strolling" towards the picnic table were actually strolling. Perhaps they can go no faster. Perhaps they are politely keeping me company because I can go no faster. Is it also possible that they may need those seats more than that "exuberant" young thing?
As for answering the phone at the meal table that suggests that you find the present company offensive and would rather be somewhere else. There are exceptions to that of course. If you are perhaps a doctor on call or a doctor who knows that a patient you have seen that day might need to see you then yes, acceptable. No doubt such a person would explain to the rest of the group before hand. And yes, there would be a small number of other acceptable excuses.
If you are at an informal gathering and your mobile rings then I suspect the right thing to do is say, "Excuse me" and answer it off-stage. It's embarrassing for other people to feel they are listening in to the conversation. 
I don't think manners have changed. Manners are surely about respect for other people? Attitudes may have changed among some young people but manners?
Yesterday a friend brought her grandson to visit the Senior Cat. The ten year old and the almost ninety-three year old shook hands. They got along extremely well together - so much so that the ten year old is hoping his grandmother can find time to come again before he goes back to his interstate home on Saturday. The Senior Cat is more than happy to oblige - because the ten year old is not only intelligent and interested in what the Senior Cat was teaching him (magic) but also because he shook hands without being prompted. He said "thank you" without being prompted. It suggested that he respected the Senior Cat. (He was equally polite to me.) 
Good manners make things pleasant. They encourage people to do things for each other. If attitudes towards that are changing then I am not sure I like it. 

Health records on-line

everyone? Don't opt in to this but opt out? 
There are new plans for a national on-line system for accessing a patient's health records.
We are told it has advantages. It potentially means you can go to a health professional anywhere in the country and they can access your health records. It means that someone who falls ill on holiday can get medical help knowing that their medical records can be brought up immediately. It means that, in the event of an accident, health records may save someone's life.
There are claims that it will save time and that it will improve the medical care available. 
Perhaps. I have my doubts. 
Records are fine if they are (a) accurate, (b) honest and (c) up to date but should they also be available to everyone who provides you with health care?
I have seen my medical record at my GP. My GP obligingly turns the computer screen around so we can look at it together. There is nothing very remarkable on there - certainly no record of the spat I had with a misogynistic male GP. My GP treats me like an intelligent individual with a better than average level of medical knowledge in some areas.  She adjusts her vocabulary level so that it is appropriate to the circumstances. I have heard her do it. She talks to Middle Cat like another health professional. She uses technical language with me. With the Senior Cat she uses language which says, "You are intelligent but I know you may not always know the technical terms" and with an elderly Greek Cypriot migrant she explains slowly in plain, simple English and does it twice if necessary asking questions to make sure she understands. I know. I have heard her do it. 
We are fortunate in that she does communicate well. Many doctors don't - even though they try.
So you get medical records that are only as up to date as they have time for and they may or may not be accurate for any number of reasons. 
It may also mean that patients need to know more than before. The next health professional they see might ask, "You have...? What are they doing about that?" or "Are you taking..... or.... for....?" or "Have you noticed a change in X or Y recently?"
If a doctor is merely monitoring a potential problem then does the patient need to know if nothing can or should be done about it? Does it give the patient something more to worry about? Will they turn to Dr Google to find out more and then start self-medicating in an attempt to halt "the problem"? What do you tell the patient in these circumstances?
There is also the honesty issue. On the old, written records there was plenty of "code" for things like "this patient is an hypochondriac" or "this patient is rude" or "this patient does not take advice well" or.... well you can imagine plenty more. The information was not usually shared with other doctors. It was just there to remind the doctor who had written the notes. Doctors are not going to write such useful but potentially dangerous remarks on records that could be seen by anyone.
And I do mean anyone because any computer system can be hacked. Of course if you "opt out" people will say, "Oooh must have something to hide then." But it might be that you just don't care for the world to know about your medical history.
I can think of more issues but those above are, to me, the most obvious. I can think of some partial solutions too but they would be too expensive to implement.
It is an issue which still needs more thought than the government seems prepared to give it. 
 

The Senior Cat is learning a new language -

or perhaps I should just say a new vocabulary. He has a new i-pad. This sort of technology is not his "thing". He doesn't understand how it works and that bothers him. He likes to know how things work. 
He understands his woodworking tools. He knows how the illusions work in a conjuring trick. He has an understanding of many other things. He is still smart at almost 93. If I am half as smart at ten years younger than that I will be doing well. 
But, the i-pad has him puzzled. Why does it work when he presses a point on the screen?
I don't know enough about it to explain. Brother Cat's explanation over the phone just confused him even more. My BIL is an engineer and the response from him was much too detailed. It left the Senior Cat sighing in frustration. Middle Cat just said, "Does it matter? Just use it."
My nephews have not been around to explain. Youngest Nephew would probably have done an excellent job of explaining. Unfortunately he lives in a neighbouring state. 
So, this morning, after a meeting, a friend of his is coming to explain some finer points of using the device. He has quietly promised me that he will explain, in simple terms, how the device works. He should be able to do this. He was a teacher until he retired. 
But it was all a timely reminder for me. I had a request a couple of days ago. Someone asked for help in setting up an explanation of how something works for a group of people who are illiterate. He first had to explain to me. He's also an engineer. His explanation was long and convoluted. It ran to three and a half paragraphs. Even then it was not clear. I finally resorted to looking up some information and went back to him with a one paragraph "is this what  you are trying to say?"
He agreed it was. I have sent the information on to someone who draws illustrations for such things and suggested what might work. She will come up with a short series of simple pictures that will make it very plain indeed. 
It is a long way from three and a half paragraphs of convoluted language. I hope the Senior Cat's friend can manage the same sort of illustrations.