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My Diary/Blog For the Month of July 2014 |
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| Wednesday 30th
July 2014 |
| 08:49 BST The weather returned back to how a July day should be (in my own warped imagination). It was bright and sunny, dry, and on the upper limits of warm (around 27° C). That almost meant a return to hot, sweaty, and airless nights, but somehow it stayed just in the comfort zone last night. This morning it almost felt chilly. The temperature was just 15° C, but once the sun had risen properly it was a nice sunny morning with plenty of blue sky. It seems to be a little cloudy now, but the forecast says it should be a mostly sunny day, and the temperature should rise to 26 or 27° C again. Walking to the station after work yesterday was, once again, not quite the chore that it has been for most of the year. It didn't seem as pleasant as it was a day or two ago, but it wasn't a complete slog, and that is probably the most important thing. I'm not sure how I felt when I finally got home. I think I felt more uninspired rather than exhausted. I certainly didn't feel like doing any more than eating, reading and sleeping - which is pretty much exactly what I did last night. First there was dinner. I didn't feel like putting much effort into trying to satisfy myself with a very low everything meal, but I did smooth off the rough edges. The core of my dinner was a couple of grilled lamb burgers (with mint) served on a bed of raw salad type vegetables. The lamb burgers were a bit of a mistake. They seemed like a good idea when I saw them on the shelves in Aldi, but they were predictably rather greasy, and the mint in the mixture was practically tasteless. Ignoring the other crap I snacked on, the second part of dinner was the other half of the pineapple I ate the other day. Apart from having to spend the rest of the evening pulling fibres of pineapple out from between my teeth, I've always quite liked pineapple, and I don't know why I don't have it more often, but now there could be a greater incentive to have it more often. It seems that this week pineapple is the latest "superfood" to quote from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/276903.php - "Fresh pineapple is the only known source of an enzyme called bromelain, which has been used in studies to determine it's effectiveness in alleviating joint pain, arthritis, reduce inflammation". It also has all sorts of wonderful vitamins, minerals, and loads of teeth clogging fibre ! If the half I had last night had reduced my joint pains this morning I could believe all these good things, but I feel a bit sceptical at the moment. I'll see how I feel when I go home after work. After I had eaten my dinner I spent 10 - 20 minutes on my PC before I went to bed - initially just to do some reading. I think it was something like 8.30pm when I came to the end of a chapter in the book I was reading, and that seemed like a good place to stop. So I closed the book, turned out the light, and I don't really remember much after that until 2am when I woke up from what must have been the deepest sleep I've had in ages. It's just a shame that I couldn't seem to sleep all that much for the next three hours, and maybe it's an even bigger shame that it seemed like I was just getting the hang of sleeping again as my alarm signalled that it was time to get up. The ease that I first went to sleep, and the depth of that sleep were no doubt due to another night where it wasn't hot, steamy and airless, although having a sleep deficit from recent nights when it was hot, steamy and airless no doubt helped a lot. It definitely felt quite fresh in my bedroom this morning, and it was actually chilly as I stood soaking wet in the bathroom after my morning shower. With all the good sleep, and fine chemicals from the pineapple, I should have felt wonderful this morning. Unfortunately I didn't. This morning was/is another morning when my legs feel stiff, and bits of me hurt. What was a pulled muscle in my chest, but is now obviously cancer of the muscle that sits partly under the right breast, armpit and shoulder blade, seems sore again this morning. It's nowhere near as bad as it was a week or two ago, and for most of the day I am completely unaware of it, but there are still ways to make it sore, and I must have discovered a new way in my sleep last night. For a little while I had other pains in my chest area. Maybe "pains" is rather an inexact description of what is the result of the medically and physically impossible situation of the front of my chest floating free of the rest of my chest. It sometimes feels like my rib cage is disconnected from the rest of my skeleton. It doesn't hurt any more than having a loose wristwatch, lost from a surgeons wrist, floating around inside you (which could be a possibility !), but it does feel weird at times. The best way to describe my current situation is simply to say that I would rather be in bed than at work, and to leave it at that ! On a more positive note.....it's Wednesday, and the very least that signals halfway through the working week, but there is more to it than that. In this particular week it means it's the day before payday (I hope). My bank account is still in the black, but it's holding onto that position by the skin of it's teeth. Today is also the day before Thursday when Hardtail will be performing in The Catford Ram in the evening. The latter is tricky because I don't have Friday off work. So I can't stay out too late, or get too drunk, but it is still something to look forward to. Have you ever seen a pigeon fall out of a tree ? Probably not, and strictly speaking neither have I. I have an eldeflower tree in my back garden, and the top branches of that is the only thing I can see from my bathroom window when it is just open a slit, as it usually is. Big sleek pigeons, totally different looking from the scrawny vermin infested pigeon that drop crap on you from the eaves of the platform canopies at Waterloo East station, love to perch in that tree and feed on new shoots and elderberries. I looked out the window yesterday evening and saw a strange sight. A pigeon was hanging almost upside down to reach a particular berry or something. As I looked on it slipped down onto the next branch that it only just managed to grab. I swear blind it had that same look that cats have when they accidently slip or fall - a look that tries to convince that it was actually a planned move, and not an accident at all ! |
| Tuesday 29th
July 2014 |
| 08:11 BST There was thunder and lightning, hail, and flash flooding on the south coast, and something almost as bad in parts of north west London yesterday, but here in Earlsfield, and also in Catford, it wasn't so bad a day. There wasn't as much sunshine as there should have been for a summers day, but it was dry and warm. The top temperature was only 23° C, and it seemed far less humid. It made for a far more comfortable night. This morning started off at a rather fresh feeling 17° C. It was, and still is, cloudy enough to block any sunshine..and yet I can see many patches of blue sky. So the sun will eventually break through, and we should end up at a fairly warm 26° C by late this afternoon. The only unknown is whether the heat will brew up any storms. The forecast says no, but.... Walking from work to Earlsfield station yesterday came the closest it has been for ages and ages to being pleasurable. Maybe it has never actually been pleasurable. In fact I seem to remember moaning that it is, to a very minor degree, uphill all the way, and that may have been soon after work moved from central Wandsworth to here (5 years ago ????). The feeling sort of good lasted until about 10 minutes after I got home, and then I crashed. Well maybe not crashed, but I did seem to lose energy remarkably fast. The replacement motherboard for my PC arrived at work yesterday, and I did contemplate fitting it last night - until I got home and the idea evaporated like good sense at a heavy drinking session. Maybe I'll think about fitting it tonight, but now I've fiddled with some settings, and got the PC stable again, there seems a lot less urgency to do a transplant. For the moment it is not urgent at all, but I will do it sooner or later because it will bring a few benefits beyond just extra stability (hopefully). Of course the main reason why I seemed to have left all my energy outside when I got indoors was because of my poor sleep on the two previous nights. That could have been the reason why I found myself eating more carefully last night. Some bits of it were all good quality healthy stuff like salad, but the big chunk of cheese I had in salad number one sort of wrecked it, and the sliced pepperoni in salad number two wrecked that too. The few spoonfuls of lemon sorbet were possible fairly neutral, and the banana probably did little harm. I'll conveniently forget about the two packs of sandwiches which also passed my lips during the evening. One of the great things about last night was that it was a lot fresher. It felt muggy in my bedroom when I first got home, but with a few windows open it felt almost cool and fresh by the time I got into bed. I went to bed quite soon after 8pm, and by 8.30pm I was almost asleep when the bloody phone rang ! I disposed of that business by 8.45pm, and once again I tried to get to sleep. It didn't come so easy that time, but I think I started dozing off around 9.30pm, but it may have been a bit later. For the first time in days I was able to actually sleep in bed rather than just on top of the bed, and on the whole I think I slept well. I woke up a couple of times during the night, as usual, but I did sleep right up the time that my alarm went off. Without it I might still have been asleep even now, and I am very certain that if I had just turned over as soon as I had cancelled it I would have gone straight back to sleep. That doesn't sound like I slept that well if I wanted to sleep on, but all that sleep must have been good for something. Nevertheless, I can see myself trying for another early night tonight, and hoping that I can get my full 8 hours of beauty sleep ! I guess that is my only plan for tonight - get home - eat dinner - check email - check a web page or two - go to sleep ! Life is so exciting sometimes ! There was news from the concourse at Waterloo station that I forgot to mention yesterday. The concourse has a new temporary tenant. This time round it is the turn of Asus who make computer stuff - desktop machines, tablets and laptops. They are there again today, and what they are actually promoting is their "Transformer Book T100".   |
| Monday 28th
July 2014 |
| 08:34 BST First it was overcast, then it became nice and sunny, and finally it became so overcast that I was convinced it might rain yesterday. The sunny period was from mid morning to early afternoon, and the overcast from then onwards. I forgot to check the exact temperature, but maybe it did only get to 25 or 26° C, but it felt so sticky that I was sure there must be an approaching storm. Perhaps out in the real world it was not so sticky, but in my bedroom it seemed unbearable. This morning started off nice and fresh (outdoors), but it was very grey outside, with no hint of any sunshine. The forecast said it should be raining by now, but I have yet to see any rain, and it looks like the cloud is starting to break up. It is supposed to be a warm and sunny afternoon with a temperature of 25° C. Yesterday was another very lazy day. My only achievements were to go and get some shopping from Aldi, and to do a tiny bit of gardening ! The strange thing is that it felt good to get out and walk to Aldi, and I don't know why I felt so reluctant to go out elsewhere. I arrived home with my shopping feeling both good, and feeling extremely damp from sweat - which makes what I did very soon after a very unlikely thing to do. I put away my shopping, and then went out into my front garden to hack down a small tree that has been getting out of control recently. I've cut down this tree several years running, but I can't easily uproot it because it's root system is too strong, and it twines around the cable that carries my cable broadband. I don't want to accidently cut myself off from the internet. So for the second (third ? fourth ?) year running I've pruned the tree right back down to the ground. Of course when I say tree I really do mean tree, it is a sycamore, but it grows more like a shrub now. The very highest shoot/branch/stem that I cut down yesterday was no more than 5ft off the ground. It should be OK now until next spring or summer, but maybe one day I will find the patience to slowly cut out the root system because it really has no place in my tiny, pocket handkerchief sized front garden. I almost made an attempt to eat very little yesterday. After a trip to a supermarket that seemed unlikely, but I did partly succeed in doing so - not that it seems believable this morning. My evening meal, was a quite early evening meal, and it was both light and heavy - which sounds like a contradiction, but is still a bit true. It might be considered light by overall size, but very heavy in terms of sugar content. It started with half a small pineapple. That had lots of goodness in it (in some mystical way that includes fibre), but also lots of natural sugar too. I followed that by a few spoonfuls of lemon sorbet. Theoretically it should have been low fat, but probably so much sugar that I didn't dare to look at the ingredients list. Finally, I had some walnut cake - very nice put pure poison without any redeeming factors except that delicious taste ! There was a reason why I ate those things, and with hindsight it was a bloody stupid reason. It was all to do with going to bed. I thought I would avoid spicy stuff in the hope that I would not feel so hot and sweaty when I went to bed. I cannot understand why I didn't think that saturating my bloodstream with sugar would not have the same effect. For several hours, maybe as long as four, I thrashed around trying to get to sleep while all the while my forehead was pouring with sweat. The rest of my body was trying to keep up some of the time, and at one point the sheet under the small of my back felt so damp I wondered if I had pissed myself. I suspect it was gone midnight when I eventually fell asleep, and I think I slept solidly for about 4 hours before I woke up. That four hours, if indeed it was that long, was all the sleep I got last night. I sort of feel OK right now, but I can imagine I'll be dozing off from time to time here at work. The rest of me feels fairly good now, but I felt dreadful before I left to get the train this morning. I seemed to have a few creaky bits, but the worst thing was my guts. Considering that I didn't eat anything too inflammatory yesterday, at least I can't think of anything, I had some remarkable volatility this morning, and I felt most uncomfortable as I was about to leave - so uncomfortable that I opted to get the next train, and stay at home an extra 30 minutes. Once I started to walk to the station I didn't feel too bad guts wise, but I definitely felt unusually good legs wise. Of course all these things are by comparison with recent conditions rather than what I have achieved in the past, and still might aspire to, but it definitely felt easy to walk to the station and the same could be said about the other bits of walking I have to do to get to work. Maybe my extreme laziness over the weekend did have a point after all - one that I didn't consciously realise I had to do.  Maybe I did miss some great live music this weekend, but there will be other live music to enjoy, and the Thursday nights gigs at The Catford Ram are just so damn handy.....and also annoying ! Thursday night, like most weekday nights, is not a great time to stay out late when you have to get up for work at 5am the next morning, but maybe I can bank some sleep in advance before this coming Thursday. Hardtail are pretty damn good, and I would like to stay to see as much of their gig as I dare. So obviously I have to try and get as much sleep as possible tonight. With luck it will be a bit fresher tonight, and if I avoid anything with sugar in it, and anything with chilli in it, and anything with any number of other spices in it, I may not feel quite so hot and sweaty when I go to bed. While that is a maybe, it will be definite that if I stick to that plan it will hardly be worth eating anything if it is going to be that bland. Oh well, time will tell...... |
| Sunday 27th
July 2014 |
| 10:05 BST Yesterday was not always as bright as it could be. In the early afternoon a few very dark clouds drifted acrosss the sky, and I feared a repetition of Friday's thunderstorms, but the clouds carried on their way without dropping anything. So it remained dry with some extended sunny periods, and while it was doing that the humidity seemed to be climbing rather high. Last night seemed to be the hottest, and muggiest night so far this year.....although the peri-peri chicken I had mid evening probably induced some of the sweat. This morning the sun is trying to break through an overcast sky, and to my great surprise it is already 24° C - and starting to feel sticky. The BBC reckon the top temperature for today, at around 4pm, will be 25° C, but they also reckon it should only be 20° C right now. Whatever the final score is, I feel it is going to be a slightly uncomfortable day. I didn't write anything yesterday because I had so little to write about. Maybe it was some sort of extended hangover after the excesses of Thursday night, or maybe it was the weather.......or maybe it was just an opportunity I grabbed to do very little - except I did do a few things ! In the morning I did some laundry. That was a very hot and sticky experience. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe by the time I had hung up the stuff to dry. Maybe I wanted to do some intensive resting after doing that. There was stuff I could have done that started quite early in the afternoon, and ended late in the evening, and that was Chattfest - a sort of two day music festival in the field like garden behind The Chatterton Arms pub in Bromley. Today will be the second day of it, and I think it starts around midday. There were a few bands I wanted to see, but I didn't know when they were due on, and I didn't want to spend the whole afternoon and evening there. So I just couldn't raise the enthusiasm to go out. I would hazard a guess that I was displaying one of the symptoms of depression - or maybe agrophobia - or something else entirely. All I know is that I seemed to feel perfectly happy (happy as in the absence of sadness) to stay in by myself not really doing much. The only negative thing about it is the difficulty of thinking up some creative way of saying "I couldn't be bothered" to some of the people who would have expected to see me there - particularly the musicians. Yesterday's lunch was a huge salad - huge because the chief ingredient was a whole sweet gem lettuce - and that is quite big when unfurled on a plate ! The whole thing was mostly all good and healthy stuff, and if it had been my only meal of the day I would be all healthy and good too, but it wasn't ! At around 6pm I started to feel peckish. Not exactly starving hungry, but enough to desire some food, and unfortunately I had it in mind that I wanted something "exciting". So I ordered a takeaway. To reach the minimum price for free delivery I ordered more than I needed - quite a bit more. For instance I have a 9 inch pizza in the fridge that I will have for lunch today. The core of my takeaway was some peri-peri chicken. Now in theory this should have been grilled, and fairly fat free, but what was delivered last night seemed quite greasy to me. Nevertheless it was very tasty, and slightly spicy. I say slightly spicy because it didn't seem to be that hot at the time, but I can't help but think it made a strong contribution to how nasty and sweaty I was last night. I was on my bed (it was far, far too hot to get in it) as early as 8.30pm last night, but there was no way I could get comfortable. Even with a fan on me it felt like my face was burning, and sweat was pouring out of me from my head down to my knees (I can't recall having sweaty calves or feet !). I tried reading for a bit, but by 10pm (or maybe as early as 9pm) I decided I was too tired to read, and that I ought to try and get some sleep. I thrashed around for the next couple of hours until a thought entered my head from nowhere - or that is how I seem to remember it now. I wondered if there were any software updates for my firewall box (an old Pentium II PC running Smoothwall Express). So I tried to log onto it, and found I couldn't. I could ping the box, but the web page wouldn't display, and I couldn't even log in via a secure shell. That worried me a bit....well quite a lot actually. I wondered if my box had been hacked into, and was being used for nefarious purposes. There was no option but to go downstairs (where it was cooler) and connect up a spare PC next to the firewall box so I could see what was happening without having to run up and down stairs. Once that was up and running I did the only thing I could do to my firewall box - I switched it off and on again. It sounds terribly cliched, but it worked. It came back up with everything working perfectly - and no updates needed. I think, or at least I hope, that all proves that the box had not been hacked, and yet I find it slightly difficult to believe that something like a power glitch could have killed the web server, and the ssh server, but left it functioning enough to still pass data to and from the internet. It's probably one of those things were there are no definite answers. When I got back to bed I was finally able to get to sleep, but it wasn't very good sleep. I don't know how many times I woke up in the night, but it was a lot more than usual, and the dreams seemed to go on forever. At least some of the dreams had a vague erotic theme, and that made them worthwhile (!), but there was one dream that was fascinating - and it was about technology. I dreamed that I had been wearing some sort of band around my head that was a dream recorder while I slept, and I could play back my dreams. While that is a bit exciting, the really exciting thing is that I think, and I could easily be deluded here, that within the dream I was able to playback dreams I had earlier in the night. That's a lot of layers of fantasy ! Today I still don't feel any strong compulsion to go and visit Chattfest. It is possible that I might, but I think my only priority today is to go and buy a few things from Aldi. Some bottles of their cheap sugar free cola would be useful, and it would probably be wise to get a pack of toilet paper in. There is other stuff to get too, but I'll only find out what that is when I get there - probably ! |
| Wednesday 23rd
July 2014 |
| 07:55 BST It was just like summer yesterday - warm, bright, and dry. There was plenty of sunshine, and nice breeze to make the 26 - 27° C feel delicious. Today has started off bright and sparkling, but it is now getting cloudy. If the forecast is correct we will have to endure an overcast sky for a lot of the morning, but this afternoon should see blue skies again. Today started at around 17° C, and the temperature could rise slightly higher than yesterday - maybe 28° C, and some extreme optimists suggest 30° C or more. It took some time before I realised that I actually felt lousy yesterday morning. The rather stupid choice of a greasy lamb samosa for breakfast left me feeling like I was going to throw up. On top of that I felt really creaky, but as the day wore on, all these nasty things seemed to evaporate, and when I went home I felt quite good - possibly better than I had done for some time, maybe even a long time ! There is a possible, but highly unlikely reason for feeling so good. On Monday I ran out of two of the pills I take to reduce my blood pressure. One of them, Amlodopine, I have always been suspicious of. It is a shame that I didn't test my blood pressure yesterday to see if it was high. I guess my opinion counts for little against the whole body of opinion of medical science, but I always think my body works better when my blood pressure is high. Maybe it is a case of the candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast, but live fast, die young has always seemed to be a very attractive idea. Of course all this is irrelevant because there is no way my blood pressure should go up to what my body thinks is correct for it just by missing one dose.......or could it ???? The first thing I did when I got home from work was to go straight out again. I couldn't easily do that unless I felt as good as I did yesterday, and that is rather ironic when you consider that I was going to the pharmacy to pick up the very tablets that may cause me to feel so bad that I wouldn't want to go out and get those tablets after a day at work. After I got the tablets I came striding home, and only stopped at the corner shop where I bought some diet cola and some ice cream. The ice cream was a bit naughty what with all the sugar and fat in it, but it did cool me off a bit after rushing around in 27° C of heat. There was one other thing that made yesterday evening a bit out of the ordinary. As well as feeling good, I also didn't feel as starving as usual. Actually, "starving" is not a good word to describe an out of control appetite, but I can't think of a better word. I didn't have the lightest meal possible, but it wasn't bad, and I felt no need to eat a few things I was anticipating eating as well. I spent much of the short evening playing with computers. Some time ago, and I think it was towards the end of May, I placed an order with Amazon for a few assorted things, and one of them was a USB dongle for digital TV and also DAB radio. It was curious about the DAB portion. It has been many years since I last received DAB radio on my PC using an ancient device called a Psion Wavefinder. It was great for recording many sci fi radio serials from BBC 7. Well BBC 7 is no more, and neither is my Wavefinder. So it was a bit of an impulse buy to get this new dongle and see what was about on DAB. If I recall correctly, the dongle was very cheap, about £3, but the postage and packing was as much as £10 - which probably wasn't bad considering it was sent from China - a fact I only realised soon after ordering it. I think the estimated delivery time was something like 23 days, but it was probably closer to double that - so long that I had forgotten it was coming ! Anyway, after suffering numerous updates, often needing restarts, I got the device working on my netbook when booted to Windows XP. Now I just have to think of a good reason to listen to a DAB radio station ! The device is supported by Linux - up to a point. The DVB-T television worked as soon as I plugged it in, but DAB support under Linux is probably too experimental for me to bother playing with it. If there was something I desperately wanted to listen to, and record. I might be inspired to put my experimenters hat on, and have a go at getting it working - although I doubt I could do it without taking up fags again. It sounds like a one packet problem ! I had a little trouble relaxing and getting to sleep last night, but once I got to sleep I slept quite well.....well, mostly well. I did wake up once with cramp just starting in one leg, but I managed to nip that in the bud before it got painful. I had several weird dreams in the night. The simplest one to explain concerned being in a house with two other people who I knew well, but who I didn't really look at. So I never saw their faces, and can't put a name to them. This house had voids behind the walls that were almost big enough for me to get through, but far easier to one of my unknown friends who was far smaller than me. For unknown reasons we were going to plant explosives behind a major load bearing wall in the centre of the house. I either woke up, or moved on to another dream before I even saw any explosives (or had any notion of where to find them). The other notable dream (or dreams) also concerned a house. The really curious thing about this house was that it felt like home even though it was obviously different to where I now live, or any places I have lived in, in the past. The really, really curious thing is that I am sure this house has appeared in past dreams as well. It seems so familiar. It's almost as if I got a crossed line in my dream, and dreamed someone else's dream.....or something dramatically weird or supernatural like that. Maybe I touch the psyche of a me in a (almost) parallel universe in some of these dreams. Maybe I stop to think about these dreams too much instead of just enjoying them. This morning I woke up feeling sort of good except for the aches and pains. One of the curious pains, although I think I only noticed it last night in bed, was a sore left nipple ! This was another of those "this could be good", but so often turns out not to be good moments. Once upon a time (since my operation) my whole left man boob was more or less numb, and gradually the sensation has returned to it. The only bit that is still numb is the nipple, and I think that is coming back to life. There is one very good reason why it will be nice if 100% perfect sensation comes back to it - and that's when I slide my mobile phone into my shirts breast pocket. It can feel damn weird without proper feeling there, and at one time it was actually sort of painful. My "pulled muscle", that must be something far stranger than a pulled muscle, is still sore this morning. Once it got to the stage where it no longer hurt unless provoked, it seemed to stop getting better, but maybe it has changed in some way that is too subtle to describe, and maybe it has been joined by a few other muscular feeling aches. Most things I do don't provoke it, but certain twisting motions, and picking something up at a slightly odd angle to provoke it, but fortunately it is usually no more than a dull pain. One pain that was quite intense, screaming agony for a few milliseconds, was the result of a little mishap yesterday.  I guess I was feeling fairly good by yesterday lunchtime. I was certainly feeling good enough for a brief stroll to the park. 
|
| Tuesday 22nd
July 2014 |
| 08:22 BST It may have been warm and dry, but yesterday's weather was not terribly exciting. Except for a few brief periods of time the sky ranged between light grey and milky white. I'm not even sure there was any blue in those few brief times when there were a few rays of sunshine. The temperature still reached the high twenties though. This morning has started off quite fresh feeling, maybe 17° C, and much of the sky is blue. The forecast suggests that until the evening it will be a fairly sunny day. The top temperature will only be 25° C, and it will be dry. I didn't write anything yesterday because there was nothing much to write about, and I was also feeling pretty lousy. Apart from visits to the toilet, and visits to the kitchen for cold drinks and grabbing occasional snacks, I stayed in my bedroom. I didn't have, or want any formal meals. So I just had occasional snacks. I can't work out if I ate more or less than on an equivalent day (probably a Sunday). Considering I spent so many hours laying on my bed yesterday, and could doze off any time I wanted - and did doze off several times or more - I fell asleep easily last night, and I slept rather well. Maybe not perfectly, but I can't remember the last time I slept non-stop for 7 or 8 hours. The best I can manage these days is about 4 hours (perhaps in my wildest imagination that could be 5 hours). All that rest and sleep still didn't seem enough to stop my eyelids feeling heavy for one short period ot time while on the train this morning. Today I am back at work, but I can't work out if I feel good or bad today. I initially thought I felt quite bad. Bits of me ached, and that included what I shall describe as my upper stomach area. I sometimes wonder if I want to vomit. Hopefully not. While some bits of me felt rancid and rotten, other bits seem to be in unusually good working order. I didn't feel like rushing around this morning, and so I didn't push very hard, but at a good moderate pace my legs seemed to work very well. Walking to the station, between stations at Waterloo, and from the station to work seemed unusually effortless. If I could do that at a fast pace I think I would feel rather good about it. There are many things I could do tonight, but I reckon I'll only be aiming to do two of them. The first is to visit the pharmacy I use to see if they have a repeat prescription of all my little evil blood pressure pills made up for me (I put the order in yesterday morning). The second thing is to try and get to bed early, and of course to try and get to sleep as quickly as possible. Between the two I feel a light dinner would be useful. I'm not sure what a light dinner would consist of, and whether it is even possible with the ingredients available in my fridge and cupboard, but I'll make up something as I go along. Nothing much was happening at Waterloo station this morning. There was nothing happening on the concourse, and for a brief period there were no trains moving. The train in platform 2 that eventually formed the 07:20 service to Woking (or Dorking - always mix up those two) had suffered an electrical failure - or so we were told. I suspect it had held up services on its way into Waterloo, and so for a few minutes it was the only train in the low numbered platforms - the ones I use to get to Earlsfield. A few minutes later the train that would become the 07:24 service to Dorking (or Woking - still mix them up) pulled into to platform 1. I was about to get on the 07:24 when it was announced that the train for the 07:20 had been fixed. So I got on that one. Unfortunately it was the 07:24 that left first - roughly on time. We had to wait another 3 minutes for the 07:20 to leave 7 minutes late. 
This
train, after the electrical fault on it had been
fixed, and after the "Not To Be Moved" flag was
taken down, was the 7 minute late running 07:20
train that took me from Waterloo to Earlsfield
this morning.
|
| Sunday 20th
July 2014 |
| 16:48 BST It was difficult to
know if it was just me, or if it was the humidity, or if
30.3° C just tipped the balance, but it definitely felt
the hottest it has been this July, or probably in the
last 12 months ! It felt very uncomfortable, and I was
put off going out last night - despite knowing that it
would actually be much more pleasant outside......but
then again, the pub I would have been heading for can
get very hot if it gets crowded in there (at least that
is how I remember it). It only cooled down a bit last
night, and I seem to recall seeing 24° C on my
thermometer this morning, but it did feel very much
fresher. Apart from a couple of sunny periods, it
has been mostly overcast today, but that hasn't stopped
the temperature rising back up to 26° C. As I write this
it is getting darker outside, and it it is feeling much
more humid (although having just eaten some hot food
will be spoiling my judgement about humidity). It is not
raining yet, but it is almost certainly about to start.
We have just had a bright flash of lighning, and the
crash of thunder came quite quickly after it. Somewhere
not too south from here (in my estimate) is probably
getting battered with heavy rain right now. It will be
surprising if it isn't our turn soon. My attempt to find out what the weather would be for today, and for tomorrow, broke the internet this morning ! 
The BBC's website was back to normal 10
minutes after I took this screen shot, and the
forecast, as I remember it, was close to reality -
although it did say that it ought to have started
raining here a little while ago. If it continues to
be close to right then tomorrow will be similar to
today - occasional sunny periods, but more often
overcast. It may be a degree or two cooler, and it
should stay dry all day.
By choosing to stay in, instead of going to a gig, I had to find ways of amusing myself last night. TV helped a bit, and an edition of QI revealed an interesting piece of information concerning beetroot that ties in with some comments I made here recently. On two recent occasions I have eaten a large pack of shredded beetroot. I can be such a strong red/purple dye that I wondered if I would do pink/purple poo ! Jeremy Clarkson, one of the guests on QI said that he was affected by beetroot in that way. It was then stated that some people produced coloured poo, and some produce coloured pee, but never both (or it was exceedingly rare). I can confirm/confess that my genes mean I produce rosé pee and not purple poo ! The other thing I watched last night was the James Bond film "GoldenEye". (Newsflash - 17:18; The rain has started, and the peals of thunder, although distant, are getting quite frequent now) Like most Bond films it was action
packed, but it was British action (hoorah !), and
ignoring the traditional climax, just sufficient to
stop American viewers from falling asleep, or
understanding enough of the plot to realise that
America was just an incidental player in the general
plot, and wasn't running the whole show ! I'm sure
that if someone could work out why "Bond movies" can
be good one day if you are in the mood to be
receptive to them, or bad the next day if you are
not. Whoever works that out could easily become very
rich !
It was around midnight when I went to sleep last night. I guess that by that time it had cooled down quite a bit, and provided I didn't pull the duvet over more than a foot, or maybe a knee cap, I seemed to sleep quite easily, and probably rather well. I woke a few times during the night, but not for any significant length of time, and I felt comfortable enough to keep going back to sleep until gone 9am. I intended to do something today, but when it came to it I couldn't think of anything that would inspire me to do anything positive. So I've had a lazy day. I've only done two things today that are easy to explain or understand. One is to have made good headway in re-reading one of the many books on my bookshelves. The other thing I have done I did very recently - literally just a few minutes ago. I proved just how humid it was - by accident. I picked up a 2 litre bottle of Aldi diet cola that I had taken out the frisge just before I started writing. The humidity is so high right now that it was like picking up an open water tap. The condensation was just pouring off that bottle. Tonight I should be aiming to get to sleep nice and early....well before 9pm....so I can be bright and fresh for work tomorrow. After several nights of not getting to bed before midnight, and sometimes not sleeping until closer to 1am, it is going to be a bit of a struggle - a struggle that I may not win, or even attempt too rigourously, but I'll do what I can. |
|
|
| 17:05 BST It really did seem that yesterday would end with a bang instead of a wimper. As the sun set there was some thunder to be heard in the far distance, and an occasional weak flash from beyond the horizon (or so it could be imagined), but that was it, or at least that was all I was aware of. While there may not have been any thunder and lightning near here, there was certainly some rain - loads of it ! It was a theme that continued this morning, and then suddenly stopped a little while before I wanted to go out. Since about 10am it has been bright, often sunny, and the temperature has risen to a peak of 30.3° C. That is the highest I have seen on my thermometer throughout this little heat wave. The temperature has dropped back to 29.5° C now, and is probably still dropping. I can't be certain, because I have the curtains drawn most of the time, but I think the cloud is building up again. That could mean a storm tonight is starting to brew up again. Tomorrow is forecast to be a little cooler, and a little cloudier. Maybe it will be a completely dry day, but that seems unlikely to me. I had a very pleasant night, last night. Probably about as pleasant as life can be without someone to share it with. Although it felt like it was good enough to share, I wonder if it really was. In reality it was very self indulgent, but it put me in a very good mood, and I guess that is what it would have been nice to share around - like a contagious disease maybe ! There were a couple of interesting programmes on TV, and I enjoyed them with a couple of large whiskies. What I really wanted was a fag, or a snack, or a snack and a fag, but all I allowed myself was whisky with no fag, and no snack. Meanwhile, on BBC4 TV they were showing a programme about great guitar riffs. The first half of it was really good - loads of classic stuff from the 1960s and 1970s - the second half, as it came up to date, was appalling. I'm not sure I even heard any stand out guitar riffs, and I feel certain none of them were "great" ! Eventually I switched over to "Dave" who were showing a repeat of an edition of "Have I Got A Bit More News For You". It was rather handy. I had seen half that episode earlier in the evening, and then had a chance to see the other half before I decided I probably ought to be in bed. It was about midnight when I got to bed. It was too hot and sticky to cover myself up, and I thought it might be just too hot to ever get to sleep, but with it being calm outside (just steady rain) it turned out to be easy to fall asleep. Of course some credit must go to the whisky, and it may well have been the whisky that should take the blame for me waking up feeling stiff and cold at about 4am this morning. I don't think it had cooled down that much, but laying naked in front of the fan for so long may not have been recommended. It was difficult sleeping properly after that. Initially I covered a lot of myself with the duvet, but half an hour (perhaps a full hour) after that I woke up feeling like I was cooking. So I covered just one leg, and one arm, and tried again. That sort of worked for a while, and for the next few hours I experimented with sleeping with assorted bits of me exposed, and bits uncovered. When 7am came along I decided I probably ought to give up trying to sleep, and to start getting up. I felt pretty awful. Some of it was hangover, but much of it wasn't. For a while it felt like I had the 'flu. By the time I had washed, done some simple housework, and walked to the station to meet Aleemah, I felt OK - which isn't quite as good as "good", but is sufficient to pursue the usual trials of life without impediment. If I had one regret it was that I automatically when for a couple of halves of ale when we went to the Wetherspoons pub for breakfast. The ales were nice, but they are having a cider "festival" at the moment, and there were some interesting ciders and perrys that I could have tried - there's nothing like fruit juice for breakfast....and if it is fermented well....so what ! After breakfast Aleemah wanted to go in the 99p shop. It makes a change for her to want to go in there, but I was more than happy with that even though I came equipped to get some shopping from Aldi's. Instead of buying a huge bag of crud, I bought just two items in the 99p shop. One was a large gift pack (probably) of joss sticks. The other item was a Belkin USB 3 lead. If it was a genuine Belkin lead, and there is no real reason to believe it wasn't, it was an absolute bargain at 99p. Belkin stuff is usually hideously expensive. There could be a small catch to it though. The end that plugs into a PC is the correct shape to be USB 2 compatible - as it should be. The other end looks slightly weird to me, and I wonder if it is a non standard connector - maybe one that was proposed, but never made it into the final standard. At a cost of 99p it will never break the bank if it turns out to be useless, but it could possibly be damn handy to have if some peripheral using that connector should ever turn up some day. With our shopping done in the 99p shop we moved on the Aldi. I was surprisingly careful about what I bought in there. I did buy a few luxury (unhealthy) items, but most of it should be OK if I can eat it in moderation - including the bambi (venison) burgers (which should be very low fat if not infused with too much pork fat as sometimes happens). I was less careful about how much I bought by weight. I bought quite a lot to drink, and bottles of drink can get quite heavy. Fortunately I hadn't over done it, and there have been plenty of occasions when I've staggered back with much heavier loads - including far too soon after my operation last year, and I may suffer the consequences of that to my dying day if the consequences are all the random muscular pains I get around my chest - including what I describe as my pulled muscle. So while it wasn't an exceptional load to stagger back with, it was quite a heavy load for a hot and humid day when I've got company. I have to confess I was not a very pretty or attractive sight when we got back here. I was dripping from head to toe ! Some ice cold drink, and a splash of cold water cooled me down a bit, and a change into dry clothing almost, but not really, completed the transformation. I could then sit down and relax as we watched a typical all action/little plot Hollywood type movie called Stigmata. If my description suggests that I did not completely enjoy it then........... I should be going out tonight to see Chain playing in The Chatterton Arms, but I'm not sure I will. While bits of the journey (generally, the walking bits) to the pub may be quite refreshing, I fear it will be stifling in the pub. It is not that nice here in the heat, but at least I can walk around half undressed, and I have some fans to stir up the air. I can't seem to find an accurate memory of The Chatterton Arms (probably too drunk when I am there), but some faint after image is of dripping rather than shivering. The new governor of the pub has made some improvements, but I don't recall that including air conditioning. Maybe I shall just be patient, and wait until next Thursday night for my next fix of live music from Night Owl in The Catford Ram. |
| Wednesday 16th
July 2014 |
| 08:23 BST Today may be very similar to yesterday except for a reversal of order, and today will be hotter. Yesterday morning started off rather cloudy, but eventually the cloud dispersed, and we had a lovely sunny afternoon. Today has started out gloriously bright. The sky is blue, and the sun is shining, but it is forecast to be overcast and grey this afternoon - maybe not heavily overcast, and nasty dark grey, but we will probably lose all the sunshine. It will still be hot though. Yesterday reached at least 25° C, and today it is supposed to reach at least 27° C. After today things get a bit dodgy. Even warmer air is heading our way, but it is very wet air, and if it meets any cold air then there could be fireworks. Potentially 30° C and thunderstorms - lovely ! It wasn't until I was on my way home from work yesterday that I realised my extra strength dose of whisky had done some good. It is often not easy to recognise the absence of something, but something made me aware that I was getting no pain at all from my pulled muscle, and I couldn't remember when it had last pained me during the day. The lack of pain lasted right p to when I got into bed last night. I was fine while laying on my back (apart from the usual discomfort of trying to go to sleep on my back), but as soon as I turned over onto my right side I could feel the pain building up around my shoulder blade like bad back ache. It wasn't so bad on my left side, and I think that is how I fell asleep. I didn't fall asleep very quickly though. It was probably more because I was bored than sleepy that I went to be at about 8.30pm. It may have taken an hour, or even an hour and a half before I fell asleep, but once I did, I seemed to sleep quite well. This morning my pulled muscle was providing lots of quite mild pain when I do certain actions. At the moment, nearly 4 hours after getting up, and particularly at this very instant, I can feel no discomfort at all, but I know if I reach out to pick up something slightly heavy, perhaps a can of drink, I will get a bit of a twinge. Also, as I have just realised, it can still be painful to cough (although it is not the cough itself that is painful - it is the intake of breath that pulls the pulled muscle - if that makes any sense). So I am not there yet, but this is all a huge improvement over last week. Last night's dinner was a bit of a mixture. The main course was a bowl of salad with some mackerel. The can said mackerel in tomato sauce, but it looked more like a pilchard to me. This is one of the problems of buying stuff from the 99p shop. Some of it was originally meant to be sold in other countries, and maybe in some other, presumably English speaking country, they call pilchards mackerel. Either that or someone stuck the wrong labels on the cans, and that is why they were sold cheaply to the 99p shop. That was the main course, but I also had a sort of starter, and even a non sweet sweet !  I feel both good and bad this morning. As I've already mentioned, my pulled muscle is still giving me some occasional, and mostly mild discomfort. After my mega helping of shredded beetroot on Monday night I don't seem to have done any pink or purple poo - which is a shame for some completely unknown reason - but something has given me more wind than is good for mixing in polite company. I had to get off the train at Clapham Junction this morning - not because of discomfort, but from embarrassment. I am surprised my silent discharge didn't derail the train ! I then wasted 20p in a wasted visit to the toilets there. The rest of me seems to be working quite well. My feet and legs seem less swollen these last couple of days. Last night I was even able to take my jeans off by wiggling my legs like I always could prior to my calves swelling up. Having less swollen feet gave me the chance to try out some trainers I haven't used for a couple of years. They fitted OK, and they are OK to walk in except for one minor problem - a rough area that is wearing away the skin on my left little toe. I think I have some socks in my bag, and I think it would be wise to put them on when I go home this afternoon.  Meanwhile, back in the real world..  |
| Tuesday 15th
July 2014 |
| 08:35 BST Yesterday was very pleasant. It was dry, sunny, and just about warm. The top temperature was somewhere around 22° C. I don't know if it rained at 3am, as the forecast said it might, but it didn't cool down much overnight, and this morning it was 20° C when I set out to come to work. The one thing that spoiled it was that it was overcast, but the cloud is breaking up, and I can now see a lot of blue areas of sky. The cloud should continue to disperse, and later this morning, and for much of the afternoon it is supposed to be gloriously sunny. This will send the temperature up to the point where warm starts to give way to the lower reaches of hot - 26 or maybe 27° C. Unfortunately it is going to be a very humid and sticky heat - or so the weatherman said on TV last night. Going home from work had an unusual phase yesterday. I felt fairly good, not really energetic, but better than many recent, and not so recent journeys home. I made good progress all the way back to Catford, and I was fine going around Tesco's picking up a few bits and pieces, but I was halfway between Tesco and home, and it was like I had hit a brick wall. Well maybe that it an exaggeration. It was more like a wall made of feathers, but it was quite sudden. I went from feeling fine to feeling very weary over the course of about three paces. It wasn't enough to stop me, far from it, but it made the last couple of minutes of walking a bit of a drudge. I recovered fairly quickly once I got home, put down my shopping, and sat down in front of my PC. Once I got my PC up and running - which took a couple of attempts because it seems to have developed an unusual fault - and had checked my email and stuff, I prepared my dinner. It was a fairly high fibre dinner that was, on the whole, fairly low fat and sugar. The core of it was salad with some ready cooked "maple barbecued" salmon fillets. I also had some other stuff with that. One "side dish" was some Parmesan coleslaw. It did have hint of cheesiness about it, but like all coleslaw it was mainly white cabbage. I expect the Parmesan cheese, if indeed it was real cheese, added a bit of unnecessary fat, and the mayonnaise like substance that it was all bound up in probably had all sorts of rubbish in it. It wasn't all that nice if I am honest. The other "side dish" was a lot nicer than I expected. It was shredded beetroot, and the package described it as sweet and smoky. It was the smoky reference that intrigued me....plus of course, the fact that it was on the reduced price shelf at less than half price - just 49p. I am not terribly keen on beetroot, and if I have it at all, I usually have it in quite small quantities. It's earthy taste seems quite unpleasant after a bit, but this shredded beetroot did seem unusually nice. I'm not sure if I would pay full price for it, but if I see any more of it at a reduced price I think I would buy it. The thing about beetroot is that it is very intensely reddish purple, and last night I ate the whole tub of it. I didn't look for how much it weighed, but I reckon that it must have been a whole large (eating) apple sized beetroot that was shredded into that tub. This morning I am sure my pee had a hint of purple in it, and sometime in the next 24 hours I feel sure I will be producing amusingly pinky purple poo ! I wanted to get to sleep early last night, and to help me on my way with that I thought I would repeat the experiment I did last week. I had a couple of immensely large whiskys before getting in bed. They certainly helped me get to sleep, and for a little while I must have been almost comatose ! I woke up around 10pm convinced it was time to get up and go to work. Fortunately I saw the light, or maybe the lack of it by that time, and I was soon asleep again. I reckon I slept well last night, but I don't think the whisky had any good effect on my pulled muscle - which I am now sure might not be something as simple as a pulled muscle, but hey ho...The areas that were tender are still tender this morning, but are no longer bothersome most of the time, and even when I do have to put them under strain, the pain is not that strong, and is short lived. I guess it is slowly fading away, but like all my ailments that can be traced back to my operation, after an initial spurt of healing, the final healing seems to take forever. It is two things I haven't mentioned yet that left me feeling less than wonderful this morning. All the fibre and stuff I ate last night seems to be sitting in my gut like a time bomb waiting to go off, and rather unusually, the whisky I had last night seems to have left me with a headache. It's not a powerful headache. In fact it is very mild, but it does seem to be very persistent. There is one other source of discomfort, and that is the humidity. I got quite sweaty coming to work, but the air-con in my room soon dried me out........until halfway through writing this the chilli sauce I had on my breakfast of chick pea salad suddenly did it's stuff, and for a little while I broke out into another sweat ! It seems it will be rather warm when I get home after work today, and that will raise a certain temptation. There was some stuff in the newspaper yesterday about how frozen yoghurt seems to be getting quite popular. It went on to mention the health benefits of frozen yoghurt compared to conventional ice cream - but failed to mention the hidden sugar. Well maybe it is not hidden, but it isn't obvious if you are not pre-warned to check the ingredients. I am very aware how yoghurt is sold as extra healthy stuff because it can be very low fat, and yet can contain hideous amounts of sugar in it. That did not stop me buying some frozen yoghurt yesterday, and a check of the ingredients shows that it does have a lot of sugar in it. I didn't have anything with added sugar in it yesterday, and so I could take a chance on some frozen yoghurt if I feel hot tonight, but I shouldn't really. What I should really do, and probably will, is to have another nice early night if I can sleep without any booze tonight. This morning I took one more picture of the latest offering on the concourse of Waterloo station - this time from ground level.  |
| Monday 14th
July 2014 |
| 08:09 BST Yesterday afternoon was dry, and often sunny, but the best sunshine was probably in the last few hours before sunset. That was the start to a run of pleasant weather - a run that might only last 24 hours, but maybe longer if we are lucky. This morning has started of gloriously sunny, and not that cool. The forecast says this morning should be just 13° C, but it feels closer to the almost 15° C that I am sure I noticed on one of the thermometers at home. If the pattern of the forecast is followed then we should see almost non stop sunshine until the afternoon, and it will start to tickle the lower end of warm at 23° C. Cloud will start to build during the afternoon, and by 3am tomorrow morning it will be raining - or so the weather forecasters believe ! I had a thoroughly lazy Sunday afternoon...and that may not have been such a good thing. I guess I was a little bored despite time seeming to flash by until it was time for bed. With no physical distractions I had to live with whatever my mind came up with. Quite often it was quite good stuff, but quite often it made me feel like I wanted to eat. I didn't really have any formal meals yesterday, but I did have a series of often quite small snacks. Some of those snacks were pretty innocent, and others, like the cornetto I bought from the corner shop, were most definitely bad for me. There were a few times when I dozed off yesterday afternoon, and that's a nice thing to do on a Sunday. It may have even been beneficial in some ways, but it was probably one reason why I didn't get to sleep until gone 11pm last night. I guess I must have slept well because I don't feel particularly tired this morning. If I choose to ignore some of the minor, and quite common problems, I reckon I could almost bring myself to say I feel quite good this morning. I had no problem getting up after not getting as much sleep as I feel I deserve, and I even found the energy to wash my hair before coming to work. Unlike last Friday, the first pair of trainers I put on, my purple Vans, seemed to be quite comfortable. My feet seem to be averagely swollen, but my calves don't seem to be excessively swollen like they were last Friday. I reckon I could have worn my dark blue jeans that I couldn't wear on Friday...although maybe not for work where their tightness could be bothersome by the end of the day. My most annoying discomfort is still my pulled muscle(s). It hasn't really changed much since the huge improvement when I pickled it in whisky in the middle of last week. Either doing the hand laundry, which I feared may do some harm, actually did some good, or all the rest I had yesterday did some good. I don't know which, or maybe it was both, but this morning it feels different, and I'm not sure how. If I make the wrong move it can still be quite painful, but maybe the change is that the pain seems a bit more diffuse, not quite so localised, and maybe, just maybe a little milder. The optimist in me says it is a sign of recovery, while the pessimist says it is just one of those things, and may not last ! It is difficult to remove the very positive effect of bright early morning sunshine when trying to decide just how well my body is working today, and maybe it doesn't matter anyway. In theory, my blood sugar level, as a result of some wonky decisions yesterday, should be rather higher than is good for me, and maybe that has raised my blood pressure too. The high blood glucose/sugar level is most evident in the amount of sweating I've done this morning. I don't think I stopped sweating from after I got out from under a hot shower until after sitting down here at work.....oh, I think my forehead might have been dry when my train arrived at Earlsfield station, but a fairly rapid walk to work triggered it off again. If my blood pressure is nice and high, like a good working pump should be, and unlike how my doctors like it to be, it could explain why I was able to walk from home to the station as fast as I did, and the same from Earlsfield station to here at work. It doesn't explain why the middle walk, the one across the elevated link between Waterloo East and Waterloo mainline stations was such hard work ! The walks that I describe as fast were not exceptionally fast, and would better be described as the proper speed for walking to and from stations - if such a thing as a proper speed could ever be defined - whatever - it felt quite satisfactory to me ! While walking between stations at Waterloo I noticed that Network Rail were promoting..........something ??????   One thing I did pass last Friday did make a lot of sense....  |
| Sunday 13th
July 2014 |
| 12:59 BST It finally started to rain later than was forecast yesterday. I am unsure how heavy it was, or for how long it was falling. I closed the curtains when it started, and ignored the outside world. This morning started off mild, but rather overcast. At about 11am it started to pour with rain, and for a while it looked to be quite heavy. Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped, and the sun came out. The sky is now half cloud and half blue, and I would not be surprised if we had more showers, and more sunny intervals this afternoon. It is currently 26° C, and that's pleasant enough, but after the rain it does feel rather steamy (or if not actually steamy, a bit humid). Since midday, but not before if my memory serves me well (unlikely), tomorrow is going is forecast to be bright, sunny, dry and warm. As I was trying to explain yesterday, my pulled muscle is still some way from healed, and with certain movements and actions it can still be painful. Lifting my right arm is the usual cause of that pain - something I do a lot more than I previously realised. It's not an agonising pain, and it's more an annoyance than a problem. Fortunately there is one thing I can do that is comfortable - apart from turning over - and that is laying in bed, and last night I spent a very comfortable hour reading in bed before going to sleep. I think it was as late as 11pm, and possibly later than that when I fell asleep. If it wasn't for a very long dream, which was in all probability a long series of dreamlets remembered as one whole, I would be convinced it was a most excellent sleep. It is far too late in the day to remember any special detail from the dream, but it was mostly set in Wimbledon - maybe a Wimbledon, rather than the Wimbledon - the next stop after Earlsfield where I get off the train to go to work. The Wimbledon of my dream seemed to be on a river estuary, and had a large harbour. That detail just seemed incidental to my dream, and were just places passed on a bus ride around the town. The purpose of the bus ride, on a normal red London bus of course, was to find a bus stop to get a bus home from.....at least I think it was something like that. I think there was a music venue in the dream somewhere, but I can't remember going in it. It feels like I was lost, but I can't remember any worry about it, and like many dreams, it all seemed much better than real life. I woke up a little late compared to the time I usually get up, but early when taking into account the time I went to sleep. While my the concious part of my brain knew this, the unconscious part didn't and insisted on carrying out the usual early morning bodily functions. All that took some time because it also involved checking my email, and the internet and stuff. Eventually I got back in bed, and 2 or 3 hours magically passed by without me noticing it - I just didn't realise I was sleeping during that time. The plan for today was to go to Aldi, and then try and wash some shirts. When I considered it more carefully I realised that I couldn't be bothered to go to Aldi. The only thing I particularly wanted was some diet cola, and I can get that from the corner shop. I have sufficient food to last for days and days provided I don't mind the choices getting less and less as the days go past. I can go to Tesco on the way home from work tomorrow if I want something special. I was a bit concerned about washing the shirts. There was the potential for it being painful, but it turns out it wasn't. It doesn't even seem to have inflamed my pulled muscle, although if it has, the effects may not show for some time. Fingers crossed that it didn't do any damage, and there is the merest hint that it might have done some good, but time will tell. The one other thing I have done today is some photo editing.  One of the problems, from a photography point of view on Friday night, was the stage lights being stuck on red. Here's Jo Corteen lit up in brilliant red !  Here's Chris Mayer with the offending red lights off to the side of him.  There was some white light from a couple of small lamps that once used to illuminate a dart board before the stage was built. Guy Harris was lucky enough to sit in the white light with his drums.  Some pictures, like this one of the whole band, looked better when converted to black and white. |
| Thursday 10th
July 2014 |
| 09:54 BST I thought that yesterday was going to be rather poor for a July day, and I was both right and wrong. It wasn't that great, but compared to today it was pretty fair. It stayed dry. There was a little bit of sunshine, and it was not cold. That's the best bit, but it would have been better still if it was a good 3 or 4 degrees warmer, and if there was 3 or 4 times the amount of sunshine. So it was poor for a July day - a good July day - but maybe it was almost luxurious compared to the worst estimate for today. It is forecast to be grey, grey, grey, and more grey today, and while 15° C may have been a good start, 17° C is going to be an exceedingly poor finish ! It gets worse though. Showers are forecast for about the time I am going home from work, and from the look of the sky right now I can believe it could rain at any time and for any length of time. Tomorrow could be pretty horrible too, but I'll see what the forecast looks like late tonight before getting too stressed by it. There is some good and bad news about the pain I have been suffering from what is probably a pulled muscle - or "soft tissue damage" as a doctor described something similar many years ago that later turned out to be a dislocated elbow ! I am not sure how ribs are attached at either end. One end of the ribs are attached to the sternum in some mysterious way, and the other end connect to ??????? by ??????. That's a whole heap of unknowns, and it is the very last unknown (?????? number 2) that I sometimes wonder is the cause of my pain. Maybe it has come disconnected in some way. While most of this is pure uneducated speculation of the worst kind, I think it can be taken that some extra stresses were put on my ribs when my chest was opened up for heart surgery. Quite what those stresses may have left vulnerable, if indeed they left anything vulnerable, and what the result of me adding further stress may be is also a complete mystery, but whatever it is, or was, can be agonisingly painful ! The good news is that it was a lot less painful yesterday (provided I ignore a small period of time after I did some washing up). There is still some tenderness underneath the armpit (about 4 or 5 inches below it), and the front and back muscles that converge on that point are still easily inflamed, but unless I do something to provoke it, I am now free of pain, and more importantly, I was free of pain in bed last night - but only while I didn't move. The best thing was being able to lie on my back breathing normally without anything but the merest hint of the slightest possibility of pain. The same was virtually true of laying on either side, but turning over to lay on my side was still really rather uncomfortable. That freedom from pain probably let me sleep a bit better. For some reason I couldn't seem to get to sleep as early as I wanted - well before 9pm - but I was fast asleep soon after that. I woke up feeling a bit stiff, and my back seemed quite painful for a while (this also included my front as well, but I'm not sure how to describe that area). In fact it was probably not until I was showered, dressed, and leaving the house before my back stopped aching. Since then I have been remarkably free from pain provided I ignore when I sneezed twice - both times were real muscle rippers !  It is rather good that I am so
free of pain this morning. It probably also helped that
I had a fairly small dinner last night. I had cheese
salad and some cod fillets. It was almost, but not
quite, healthy sort of stuff, but best of all it didn't
leave me bloated and fart this morning.The reason why these things are so important is that I had an "interesting" journey into work this morning. Everything was fine while travelling up to Waterloo, but from then on it all started to fall apart. I took the screenshot from my mobile phone at 07:33. At that time I was on the only train that was waiting at Waterloo when I arrived there (usually there are 3 or 4). It shows that my train left on time at 07:20. That is not quite correct. I reckon it was 07:24. We crawled along, until the first (or maybe 2nd) signal, and then we stopped and waited, and waited , waited.....Then we moved on to the next signal before we waited, and waited, and waited again. I guess we arrived at Vauxhall at least 20 minutes late, and maybe we were 40 minutes late at Clapham Junction, but by that time I wasn't really paying much attention to the time. Trains were not stopping at Earlsfield where I wanted to get off. This was because of emergency engineering works in the Earlsfield - Wimbledon area - and of course this was the root cause of everything that was going wrong this morning. The recommendation was that anyone who wanted Earlsfield should stay on the train to Wimbledon, and then get a train back to Earlsfield. I decided that getting a bus might be a better idea. Getting the bus or doubling back from Wimbledon would both be a bit of an adventure, but I thought the bus might be quicker. I knew which bus route to take, and although I was not sure what route it took, I had a theory that it travelled fairly close, almost parallel to the railway over much of it's route. That turned out to be true, but while the train takes a mere 2 or 3 minutes between Clapham Junction and Earlsfield, the bus takes considerably longer (it felt a lot more, but it may have actually been no more than 10 minutes). Of course to get the bus I had to find the bus stop, and it was not where I thought it might be !  When I finally arrived at Earlsfield I opted to get off at the Earlsfield station stop instead of the previous one that is slightly nearer work. I did this so I could use a cash machine, and also to call in at the Londis mini mart to by some breakfast. As I passed Earlsfield station I noticed quite a crowd of people around the barriers for the London bound platform, and it looked like the barriers were taped off. Quite how this would work for anyone who had gone to Wimbledon to get a London bound train back to Earlsfield is anyone's guess, but I do wonder if getting the bus might have turned out to be the best decision after all. There is no Thursday night drinking tonight because we will all be meeting in The Catford Ram tomorrow when there is a gig on there. So tonight I will have, or should have lots of free time. I'll see if I can edit a few pictures from last Sunday to show here, but most importantly I want to try and have an early night - and this time get to sleep early if I can. Friday night is going to be a late night, and I have to be up moderately early on Saturday to prepare the house to look roughly OK for a visit from Aleemah. Maybe I've now put my reasons in print, my brain will actually believe them, and it will let me go to sleep early tonight ! |
| Wednesday 9th
July 2014 |
| 08:51 BST Yesterday's weather was remarkably similar to the previous day's. The forecast said it was going to rain in the afternoon, and it did.....but it stopped raining far earlier than expected. There was a little additional rain while I waited on Waterloo East station on my way home from work, but only 57 individual drops fell on me, and I couldn't be bothered to put on the coat that I had brought with me, nor could I be bothered to walk the 8 paces to get under shelter......but I did wipe off the two drops that fell on my glasses. Today started off fairly mild at 14° C, but it was a lot more overcast than I seem to remember the forecast suggesting it would be. If some of the forecast ends up close to reality then it should be sunny sooner or later. Maybe it does seem a little brighter than it was earlier, and that gives me some confidence that it will stay dry today - as it is supposed to be - although not bringing a coat today could be tempting fate ! There is a chance that the temperature could get up to 23° C today, and that is a couple of degrees higher than yesterday, but I reckon is still rather poor for a July Day. My pulled muscle continued to provide plenty of pain yesterday, but I was usually pain free while sitting at my desk. I was so comfortable that I found myself slipping into sleep quite a few times. The most painful times were after going to the toilet and doing my jeans up. Reaching low and forward stretched the painful muscle, and having to do up my belt was even more painful. The other situation that was particularly painful was any sort of forced exhalation - blowing my nose, coughing or sneezing - the latter being agonising. On the way home from work I began to get hints that these pains were starting to ease up. Some of it could be attributed to the Ibuprofen I had taken earlier in the afternoon, but earlier doses of that had only provided the very merest of relief. It is hard to actually put a numerical value on levels of pain, and probably worthless anyway. My pain was very much affected by what I was doing at any time, but the change was good enough to not put me off going home via Tesco yesterday (as it did the day before). I didn't buy that much while I was in Tesco. I'm not sure if that was deliberate so my bags would be lighter, or just that I didn't feel I needed any more. When I got home I had ready made sandwiches, and a bowl of ready mix salad for dinner. It may have been one of the lightest dinners I've had in some time - although not very low calorie, or low fat ! For "afters" I had something I didn't buy in Tesco last night. Maybe calling it "afters" is a bit of a misnomer because I didn't have it until at least an hour after the main, and maybe only, course of my dinner. It was a very big dose of whisky, and it worked wonders on my pain. When I went to bed sometime before 9pm (and maybe not too long after 8pm) I still had to be careful how I twisted and turned, but I could lie on either side, and on my back with hardly any pain at all. In consequence I had my best sleep for several nights last night. I could easily wish I could have got an extra few hours, but this morning I feel slightly refreshed. Like last night, I still have to be careful of what I do, and how I do it, but I am in far less pain than yesterday. Today I think I could mostly use words like "uncomfortable" and "painful" instead of "bloody painful" and "agonising". Of course the whole area where these pains were coming from, just below my right "moob", just below my right shoulder blade, and to a lesser extent the area that joins them, is still very tender, and so agonising is still a word worth holding on to in the event I do something stupid. The rest of my body seem, on the whole, to be working quite well. Even my brain seems to have mostly survived the huge overdose (or as I like to call it - a decent amount) of whisky that I threw down my throat last night. The little and ring fingers on my left hand are still numb after all these months since my operation, but sometimes I feel they are less numb, or numb in a different way to how they were a few months back. What I do find is that I am using my left hand more and more normally recently. So it is a sort of improvement. My legs seem to have improved a lot, and my feet are swelling less than they were a month or two ago. It sometimes feels like walking is slowly getting back to normal at last. In fact I am wondering if my legs, and perhaps my whole stamina for walking, is now just about back to where it was before I started doing my long walks 4 years ago (or was it 5 ?). It's difficult to remember such details from back then, but I do remember feeling very apprehensive about a two and a half mile walk the first time I did one of my solo visits to the seaside. It was to Rye, and it was 5 years ago ! I made a web page about it here. One problem with walking today is that I am wearing black shoes. They are otherwise identical to the red ones I wore yesterday - same make, same size, same style, but in some mysterious way they are less comfortable ! Waterloo station has been a bit boring this week, and this morning I was scratching around for something to photograph, and then I noticed this...Maybe that panel had a software problem, and maybe the one to it's right was affected too, but the other 57 (or whatever) seemed to be displaying completely valid information.  |
| Tuesday 8th
July 2014 |
| 08:27 BST Yesterday's weather had it's upsides, but it seemed rather poor for a July day. It was bright during the morning, but the cloud soon gathered, and sometime between 2pm and 3pm it started to rain....and it carried on raining until just after I left work to go home !  It may have been an hour after I got home that we were drenched in strong sunshine - which was rather nice ! Today has started off slightly milder than yesterday, although I regard 13° C as still rather fresh. Like yesterday, today has started bright and sunny, but if the forecast is correct it will be raining again this afternoon. Fortunately I have brought a coat with me - which, according to the tenets of Sod's Law - should guarantee a perfectly warm sunny afternoon ! Top temperature today is forecast to be a disappointing 20° C. My original idea was to go home via Tesco yesterday, but from time to time I was in a fair amount of pain, and I went straight home. My cupboard is far from bare, and I am a long way from starving, but it might have been nice to have something more exciting for dinner yesterday. Having said that, I did enjoy most of my dinner. The main part was a continental lentil and sausage soup. I'm not sure if "soup" is the right description, although that is what it said on the tin. It was actually like lentils and miniature sausages in plenty of gravy. It was quite tasty, but sooner or later those lentils are going to have an interesting effect on me !! Part 2 of dinner was rather experimental. It consisted of a small can of meatballs in oily tomato sauce, and half a tin of fried egg plant (or aubergine). Both came from the Turkish supermarket, and both cans only used a limited amount of English on the labels. So without delving into the (very) small print, I didn't really know what was in either tin in any detail. The meatballs did not excite me, and the tinned fried egg plant was only nice in quite small quantities. I can't decide if my pulled muscle, or whatever it is, got worse yesterday, or just got different. One thing is certain, and that is how the worst pain has moved to my back (roughly at the bottom of my right shoulder blade). Reaching forward and down, like you might do to do up a pair of trousers and belt, was the best way to incite rather strong pain from my back, and sneezing could be positive agony to my front. (Coughing and blowing my nose were very uncomfortable too). When I consider what they must have done to me to open up my chest for heart surgery, I wonder what they may have done to my ribs. I then further wonder if I have damaged some poorly healed whatever to do with a rib. It is all a bit of a mystery, and one that could only be solved by a doctor. Last night I was contemplating the possibility of trying to see one of the doctors at the group practice this morning, but although I had had a rough night because of pain, and I was pretty sore this morning, the pain didn't feel strong enough, and sustained enough to bother seeing a doctor. The other thing I contemplated last night was what the best analgesic might be. I considered whisky, and I am fairly certain that a huge dose of that would give me a good nights sleep. Then I remembered the codeine tablets I had been prescribed for the nerve pain in my left arm in the first month or two after my operation. They didn't seem to do anything at all for that nerve pain, but I wondered what they would do for a different type of pain. The bottle of pills says take one or two pills, but I decided to take three pills to see what might happen. I think they sort of worked. For about an hour, but no more, the pain did seem to be a little duller. It wasn't that wonderful, but it did help a little. I don't think the codeine helped me sleep in any way like it is supposed to do, and so it scored very poorly compared to booze in large quantities. Maybe tonight I should mix codeine with whisky, but there is a terrible flaw in that plan - I don't have a maid to find me dead in bed in the morning in typical rockstar/celebrity style ! There wouldn't be much human interest story in that, and so tonight I may well just have a few large doses of whisky, and nothing else - if I need it. As I sit here typing I don't feel any pain at all, and until I have to, I don't think I am going to make any movement to see if the pain is still lurking there waiting for something to provoke it. Considering the discomfort I was in last night, I probably got much more sleep that I would have thought possible, but "much more" is still very much short of enough. So today is going to be another day where I will be fighting to stay awake. It almost feels like tonight is already mapped out for me now. Drink plenty of whisky, get into bed as soon as possible, and hope for plenty of deep sleep. Maybe I'll feel like going to Tesco on my way home, or maybe I'll just feed myself out of a few more cans like a cat ! There is one other thing I will be contemplating during the day. I have been offered a ticket to accompany my friend Ruby to a Star Trek convention on October. I had a look at the website for the convention - http://www.destinationstartrek.com/ - and it is all a bit weird. There are a few things it might be interesting to see, and an awful lot that looks crap. The trouble is, I am a Star Trek fan, but I am not a rivet counting Trekkie. I just remember a few bits of plot or dialogue here and there, but let the majority of it wash over me. It is more interesting as a concept rather than a script, and I think that provides a clue as to why, after a lot of hesitation, I am now feeling more inclined to go. I think what may be more interesting is watching the watchers. My last worry is that it would be rather rude to my host to treat the thing as an hours amusement instead of a whole day out - as I think it is supposed to be.......or to put it another way, would I get bored too quickly ? I guess I'll never know unless I go there to find out. |
| Monday 7th July
2014 |
| 08:12 BST It turned out better than expected yesterday. It may have been ever so slightly warmer than expected, and it was certainly drier than expected. The roads in Catford were damp when I arrived back from Bromley at about 10:30pm last night, but I didn't actually see any of the rain hat was forecast for last night. This morning has started off bright and clear, and also, at around 11° C, rather fresh feeling. By this afternoon it is supposed to become lightly overcast, and there might be shower somewhere in south London - but hopefully not where I am because I haven't got a coat with me. It will only be moderately warm today if the forecast 20° C is the best the weather can offer. The pain I reported coming from what is probably a pulled muscle, was a great distraction. So much so that I ignored other stuff, and it was not until I was one third the way to Aldi before I came to the conclusion that I would have been better if I had gone to the toilet before setting out. One third of the way is only a little bit past the corner shop. So I turned around and bought some Diet Coke, and some very unholy food from the corner shop before going back home to do what I should have done before going out. I guess the pain under my right man breast, and also from below the right shoulder blade, was getting to me yesterday. That's why my combined breakfast, lunch and (very) early dinner consisted of stuff that had too much sugar in it, and too much fat/oil. It was, predictably, and intentionally very nice, and did distract me from the pain for a few minutes. I would dearly have loved to have a lie down after it, and do some reading, but all I could do semi comfortably was to lie on my side - which was OK, but not what I wanted. Eventually the time approached to go out to the PettsWoodstock warm up party. I wasn't sure if it was a wise thing to do, but I went anyway - which was the right decision when all the pros and cons are averaged out. Before I went out I brought in the towels I had left out to dry overnight, and they seemed nice and dry. Before getting a bus to Bromley I went to get some cash from a hole in the wall. That delayed me a bit, but I only arrived 15 minutes late, and I hardly missed anything. As I got myself comfortable with a pint of Hurliman lager I reckoned I would probably stay for a couple of hours, and then sneak away home again. I was a bit wrong with that estimate because I ended up staying until 10pm when it ended (although I think the bar was probably open for another hour or more). Some of the performances were not to my taste, and time dragged by, but other performances just blew me away. The fabulous Led Hammer ended the gig with a completely balls to the wall performance that continued to ring through my head as I made my way home (or was that the tinnitus from the loud P.A. ?). My one big mistake was to clap rather enthusiasticly, and to often do it with my hands above my head. That was bloody painful, but it seemed to have to be done ! One of the surprising things is that I felt almost sober when I left the gig. Having been there for over 5 hours, and with my glass rarely empty, I thought I would be quite, quite drunk, but it seems not. I had drunk enough to be unable to resist buying some fried chicken on the way home, but sort of sober enough to resist buying any chips with it ! It might have been better if I was seriously drunk because it might have made sleeping easier. I was obviously quite tired some 2 hours after my usual time of getting to sleep, but it proved difficult to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I couldn't sleep on my back even if I had wanted to (which usually I don't), and even on one side I was getting some discomfort unless I really fine tuned the position of my arms, legs, feet, spleen, liver, head, penis, and tongue (probably). I woke several times in the night, and I guess I managed to get over fours hours, but less than five hours sleep. It's all going to make for an "interesting" sort of day. Coming to work was less painful than I expected, and I am mostly quite comfortable sitting at my desk, but......a few minutes ago I sneezed, and it was horribly painful. It felt like I had been knifed through the chest. Even milder things like blowing my nose, or coughing, are a bit painful, but that sneeze.....let's hope I don't do too many of those today ! There are three things I want to do when I get home from work, and one that I may do on my way home from work. I may buy some stuff from Tesco on the way home, but I'll see how I feel. Of the three things I want to do once I am home, the most important is to get to bed nice and early. The other two will actually compliment each other if I can raise the energy to do both. The first is to wash my hair, and the second is to start going through all the pictures I took yesterday. I think I could easily have taken well over a hundred, and it is going to need some strong determination to whittle that lot down to (say) 20 presentable photos. Maybe I'll have a couple ready to show here tomorrow. |
|
|
| 09:22 BST Yesterday was very pleasant. I'm not sure if the temperature hit 27° C where I was, but some reports say that was the high for London. It certainly felt nice and warm, and it was bright and sunny almost all day. I think the odd cloud briefly drifted across the sun once or twice, but a couple of hours before sunset the clouds built up, and eventually it started to rain. This morning it seems to be 22° C, but that must be stored heat coming off the house because the breeze feels cooler than that. there was still some rain when I first woke up this morning. At this moment it is not raining, and the road looks almost dry, but the sky is grey with horizon to horizon clouds. More rain could fall at any time, but it may brighten up around midday - although the forecasters are hedging their bets - they say it will both rain and be sunny this afternoon ! Tomorrow might be dry until early evening, and there could be some sunny periods. It definitely seems that I've had an industrial accident, and it can be rather painful, but less painful than all the paperwork and kerfuffle involved in actually making it an industrial accident. For those of us less than 9ft tall, we have to climb on our bench/desk to open the window in my office. In clambering up (or down) I have to support a fair amount of my weight on one arm, and I think doing that has pulled a muscle in my chest. Of course it could be my heart about to explode again or something, but I feel fairly sure that this time it is purely muscular, and it is possible that it was one of the muscles that were damaged when my chest was cut open - despite the pain being some way from the obvious external scar. The pain I experience is partly under my right man boob, and extends towards the side of my body below the armpit, but doesn't actually reach there. As I sit here typing I am not really aware of any pain, but certain postures can be really rather uncomfortable........ Newsflash: In the last minute it has started to pour with rain in biblical proportions ! .......The very worst posture is laying on my back. That is both a problem and no problem. I sleep on my side, and so it is no problem - provided I stay on my side. It is a problem if, as I love to do, I lay on my bed reading. Fortunately it seems that hold a book up to read actually provides a modicum of relief to the pain. Reaching forward, for instance to do my jeans up, is a bit uncomfortable, and I strongly suspect that trying to lean over the bath to hand wash some shirts will be rather unpleasant - although it will have to be done somehow. Newsflash 2: The torrents of rain seem to have thinned the clouds out a bit, and it is now brighter outside than it was before - but the chances of the sun breaking through are still vanishingly low for now. I did have intentions of going out last night. Out The Box were playing in The William IV pub in Elmers End, and that is one of the places that is easy to get to. If my chest was not hurting I might have found the energy to go out again after work, but that pulled muscle tipped the balance. I'm not sure if the strong probability of rain in the evening would have stopped my going if there were no better reasons, but it added to the list of other reasons not to go, and it was nice to have avoided it. So I stayed in and treated myself to an Indian takeaway. I have to say I rather enjoyed my takeaway - both last night, and the leftovers warmed up for breakfast this morning ! It probably did me no good to eat it, but sometimes you have to live dangerously. I did do some research before ordering the takeaway. I visited the food standards agency website* to find the hygiene scores of the place I was ordering from, and of course I compared prices and customer reviews. The place I selected was moderately priced, seemed to have good reviews, and was rated a three for hygiene. Three is decidedly average, but I didn't find any place that was better. One place scored zero - I don't think I would feed a dog with food bought there ! The big unknown is how the food will taste, and how it was cooked. The food I had tasted wonderful, but like so many Indian takeaway meals it had far too much oil in it - which spoiled the pleasure for me. * There is also a "scores on the doors" website that provides an alternative way of finding out the results of hygiene inspections, but this appears to be run as a commercial enterprise, and may not be so trustworthy. While I ate my dinner I watched some TV. It was very hard to find anything that could be described as entertainment on TV last night, and I ended up watching the movie "Independance Day". I missed the beginning of it, and I might have only watched just the second half of it, but that was enough to decide that I disliked it. Basically there was only one thing wrong with it, and that could loosely be described as America. There were too many Americans in it, and it was an obvious product of Hollywood meglomania. Not a single thing about it was believable, but I guess it was made just to satisfy the American publics (believed) wish for bigger and better explosions. There was nothing else on TV after that that I felt I could stomach so I went to bed. Before trying to get to sleep I tried to do a bit of reading, and I managed to read for about half an hour before the discomfort from my pulled muscle proved to much for me. So I turned out the lights, turned over on my side, and I fell asleep amazingly quickly. I guess that was around 10pm, but it may have been earlier. I slept well until 4am when I got up for an hour. It felt slightly sad that it was still dark outside at that hour. This was partly because of the clouds, and partly, and this is the sad bit, the days are now getting shorter as we hurtle towards another winter with summer barely begun. There are two things I ought to do this morning, and I have doubts about both. The more important is to wash some work shirts. I might have to wear a long sleeve shirt for one of the days, but I have enough clean shirts for work next week. So it is not mega important that I wash some shirts, but on the other hand I am building an ever increasing pile of stuff that needs washing. I wouldn't even dare to try and wash anything as heavy as a duvet cover or bed sheet, and I don't think it would be worth trying to wash a couple of smelly towels, but maybe I could manage a few short sleeved shirts if I grit my teeth and ignore the pain from my pulled muscle. Until I've tried it I won't know if it will be a very painful experience, or hardly painful at all. The other thing I originally wanted to do this morning was to get some shopping from Aldi. Sometimes it feel like it could be a painful task, but at the moment I am not sure it would be when I try to imagine what muscles are involved in carrying shopping back. I think I might be OK in that respect, and the next danger is getting soaked - if indeed you can call that a danger. The sky is now looking more white than grey, and almost blindingly white where the sun is hidden bhind some quite thin cloud. It seems possible that if I got my timing right I could get to Aldi in sunshine, and if my luck really held out, I could get back in sunshine - but I think I will re-assess that this afternoon. Tonight I will be staying in again. I don't think there are any gigs on that I can get to tonight that I want to go to. So I'll stay in and gather my energy for tomorrow when stuff starts to happen from 4pm in Bromley. Now consider this picture...  The real big problem is that no one knew who actually owned the wall. The council said it wasn't theirs, and Workspace, who own the yard the other side said it wasn't theirs. Neither side would give in (according to hearsay), but Workspace were presumably threatened with 'elf and safety, and were forced to act. I still find it difficult to believe, but the cheapest option was not to knock the wall down and rebuild or replace it. Oh no ! It was to dig deep pits to bury girders similar to those seen on top, and to build this fantastic iron framework to hold the wall up. The work seemed to take well over a month, maybe it was two, and the cost must have been horrendous. If they could have transported some bricklayers through time from the 1800s, the type of bricklayers who built some of the huge railway viaducts, they could have had the wall down, and a new one up over a weekend, and it would last for several hundred years ! |
| Thursday 3rd
July 2014 |
| 08:09 BST I think I am safe in describing yesterday as like a summers day. It was dry, sunny and by late afternoon, warm. As I passed Banham Burglary Protection's building on my way home from work, their big digital thermometer was saying it was 24° C. My outside thermometer at home was saying it was 26° C. Curiously enough, on the weather forecast during the 6pm BBC News, they said the top temperature for London was 25° C - which seems a fair average of all the readings I saw. This morning started with a blue sky, and although I forgot to check my thermometer, it did feel very mild as I made my way to work. It should stay sunny all day today, and it is going to be even warmer than yesterday. Maybe it will get up to 27 or even 28° C. I think today will be the peak for a while, and tomorrow might be cooler and cloudier. On Saturday it might even rain !! I'm trying to think how I felt yesterday. I don't remember any particularly bad feelings, nor do I remember feeling particularly good. I guess it was just another average day of average aches and pains. Travelling home from work, while always a relief in one sense, just seemed like the usual pointless waste of just over an hour of my life. My right calf muscle didn't seem to slow me down at all, but I was aware of it much of the time, and particularly so when walking down stairs - when it was almost hurting. I had intended to wash a few shirts last night, but I couldn't be bothered. I judged myself to be a bit tired, and because I didn't do it before eating dinner, I didn't fancy bending over the bath with a full stomach. Unfortunately my stomach was a bit fuller than how I intended it to be. The core of my dinner was innocent enough. It was a heap of steamed vegetables with steamed tuna - low fat and loads of fibre ! If I had stopped watching TV after that I probably what not have eaten any more, and maybe I might even have washed a few shirts. The trouble is I stayed watching TV and that incited me to have some cheese and biscuits and stuff...... I had no special reason to stay up last night, and I thought I might as well get as much sleep as I could. So I went to bed at 8pm, and I think I was asleep by 8.30pm. Everything was good until I was woken up by the phone ringing an hour later. I guess I was on the phone for just under half an hour (maybe as little as 10 minutes, but it felt like a long time). Once the call had finished I think I was fast asleep again in mere minutes, and I almost slept right through until my alarm woke me at 5am. I do have dreamlike memory or two of going for a pee during the night, but even if I did I can't be sure that I was more than 50% awake. I do seem to need a lot of sleep still. I liked sleep before my operation, and I always tried to get 8 hours a night, but since that operation I sometimes feel I need even more than 8. I guess that somewhere inside of me I am still healing. Some of the aches and pains also suggest I am still healing, but I just cannot imagine what is still healing after all this time. It is most perplexing and annoying (sometimes) ! After that little bit of extra sleep I should feel good this morning, and to some degree I do. It's a Thursday, and I usually feel terrible on Thursdays, but this morning I feel merely horrible. I started off with explosive guts in the extreme, but that settled down to no more than a potential worry in time to leave for my usual morning train. My legs felt horribly stiff and creaky when I started walking to the station, but settled down to just merely stiff and creaky once I was half way to the station, and then were pretty much the same all the way to work. My chest and lungs feel totally inadequate for the job they should be doing, but sadly that seems normal now. Overall I would much rather be back in bed right now, but here I am at work, and I am only gently suffering. So, not bad for a Thursday, and it's a Thursday with something to look forward to. The Thursday gang are drinking in The Catford Constitutional Club after work. So no messing around...well not much - it is a 77ft detour to get there compared with going straight home ! It is possible I will have a hangover when I come to work tomorrow, but that's OK. I understand and can make allowances for hangovers ! |
| Wednesday 2nd
July 2014 |
| 08:05 BST The weather wasn't bad yesterday. It could have done with being 5° hotter, and less humid, but there was a lot of sunshine, and it stayed dry. There was one period in the afternoon when it did get very cloudy, but then it brightened up again. I'm not sure just how warm it got, but I don't think it was much above 20° C. Today has started off gloriously bright and sunny. At just 13° C it did feel a bit fresh as I came into work, but that is a couple of degrees less cold than yesterday morning. The sun should continue to shine until about the time I go home from work, and then with a forecast temperature of 23° C the cloud will move in and cap off the sun like a great big thermostat. From then on it will slowly cool down, but tomorrow may be just as sunny, and another degree or two warmer. In this morning's paper there was talk of the temperature hitting a glorious 35° C at the end of this month ! Something weird happened to me yesterday, and I expect it was the onset of some wild and wonderful neurological disease (brain rot !). I had this peculiar notion that I might try and walk to Wandsworth Common station after work. It is 4 times the distance away of Earlsfield station, and it involves going up and over a huge hill. I used to be able to walk that with comparative ease two years ago, but it would be one hell of a slog doing it now. Not only that, but the idea of doing it with a sore calf muscle, and when wearing a pair of trainers that had seen better days, and were hurting my left heel, was the height of sheer folly ! Needless to say, I didn't walk to Wandsworth Common station yesterday. Hopefully I will be able to do it before summer is over, but probably not this week, nor the next. I went home quite conventionally, but the weirdness continued when I got home. Whatever had caused my brainstorm about wanting to do an almost impossible walk, or if not impossible certainly a bloody painful walk, also seemed to want to deprive me of food. If I hadn't forced myself not to save any of the cheese for later, and I hadn't thrown the whole lot on top of the big heap of steamed vegetables, then I might have eaten a very healthy meal last night. The two small packets of Aldi own brand hula hoops, and the raw nuts and raisins that I also ate were just an extra flourish of couldn't care less ! It has just occurred to me that my ongoing brainstorm was probably also the cause of my brain not shutting up when I tried to go to sleep last night. I was in bed a little after 8pm so I could finish the book I was reading, and try to get to sleep by about 9pm. All went to plan as far as turning out the light a little before 9pm, but from then on it all went wrong. My brain would just not switch off, and just kept chattering away to itself, completely ignoring my wishes, until gone 11pm. I think it must have been close to 11.30pm when I actually fell asleep. I think I woke up once in the night, but it could have been twice, although everything is so vague that it could have been no times at all until 4.58am - just two minutes before my alarm was due to wake me. It did seem suspiciously easy to wake up then, but there have already been hints that I am due to suffer for only getting five and a half hours sleep last night. Oh well, at least I have clean hair to suffer with. (which is a totally crap way of adding a one line bit of info to this narrative that I washed my hair last night). I had trouble updating this website yesterday. It was because my broadband connection went "funny". Fortunately I didn't have to try and get through to Virgin Media's fault reception to report it. They knew about it already.....  My prime target for tonight is to try and get to sleep before 9pm. 8pm might be an even better time ! If I feel good for any reason (perhaps because the sun is out) I probably ought to wash a couple of shirts. I have plenty of clean ones to wear, but the heap of dirty ones is starting to get a bit to big. I doubt I'll be doing any laundry tomorrow night. With any luck I will be getting drunk instead - although not too drunk - I'm still aiming to not spend too much money this month. I checked my saving account this morning, and it's looking good - in a relative sort of way ! As a source of treats and goodies for when I try and live of a miniscule pension next year it is looking good. If I was trying to save for a deposit on a property in conjunction with a mortgage, it would not be so good. In fact it would be completely hopeless for all but a well appointed cardboard box. In this economic climate I couldn't ever hope to buy a house. Lucky I bought one when the going was good 30 years ago ! |
| Tuesday 1st
July 2014 |
| 08:27 BST There was a time when I became very worried about yesterday's weather. The forecast said it would be dry with sunny periods, and so I didn't bring a coat to work. By midday there was no hint of sunshine, and it was looking very grey outside. It may have been less than an hour that passed before it was pouring with rain ! Fortunately it had stopped and the sun had come out when I left to go home, but there were still plenty of big puddles to dodge on the way. Once again it was a bit of a cool day - or cooler than I would expect a June day to be, but it was still comfortable in a short sleeved shirt. The sky is mostly blue this morning, and if the forecast for today holds, it will stay predominately blue for most of the day. That means it should warm up, but the forecast is not terribly optimistic about it. The forecasters say it will only reach about 23° C, and while that is on the low side of warm, it still feels like a disappointing number for a July day. Maybe tomorrow will be better. That is forecast to reach 25° C, and it might be the same the day after. I hope the forecast goes very wrong after that because at the moment the weekend is forecast to be cold and wet ! It was a great relief to not have to go home in the pouring rain yesterday, and it was nice to go home in the sunshine, but it would have been nicer still if my right calf muscle was not giving me a fair amount of pain. It is strange how that pain only comes on during the week on a work day. It feels all wrong to be an imagined pain, but I can't think I am doing anything different apart from going to work (and the pain did start on my way to work in the morning). This morning I took a couple of Ibuprofen tablets, and that has taken the edge off the pain for the moment. As well as being rather unpleasant as I made my way home, the pain in that muscle was actually worse when I was at home...or maybe I mean more inconvenient. The pain is a mild annoyance when walking, but can get most annoying when walking down stairs. It is not so bad on solid stone steps at a railway station (for instance). It doesn't matter if you clomp around on those using any style that lessens the pain when using that painful muscle. At home it is a different matter on my creaky wooden stairs. To avoid sounding like a herd of elephants to my neighbours, I prefer to go up and down the stairs in a nice gentle sedate manner - which is not so easy when you want to minimise the time that you are putting strain on a muscle. (I don't think I explained that too well. I hope you can guess what I mean). TV was dominated by sport again last night, and so I watched very little TV last night. That rather fitted in well with my desire to try and get a full nights sleep, plus some spare if possible, last night. Wanting to also read my current book went against that a bit, but I managed to read a fair amount, and still turn out the light at about 8.30pm. Last night was one of those all too frequent times when it feels like you can't get to sleep, but you actually fall asleep very quickly. I think I got a good nights sleep except for one minor, ut important detail. I woke up too early from a rather enjoyable erotic dream - at least I hope it would have been enjoyable if I had managed to sleep on for another 20 minutes ! I can't remember too much about it now, but I am sure it was heading in the right direction...... When I passed through Waterloo station this morning there was no sign of any promotions going on anywhere on the concourse, but I did notice one little novelty tucked away under a staircase. It probably was promoting something, but I have no idea what.  Well July has now officially started, and I see that it is a rather long month. I'm now wondering just how wise it was to transfer so much money from my current account to my saving account yesterday. Oh well, I guess I'll get by. Last month ended with me further in the black than I anticipated. Maybe I can do whatever I did last month, this month as well. I guess it's all good practice for when I chuck in my job and try and live off a pittance for the rest of my miserable life. |