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Thursday 5th
March 2020
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08:06 GMT
The forecast had several goes at predicting
some rain or drizzle for yesterday morning, but to
all intents and purposes, it was dry until gone
midday. The forecast said it would rain
continuously from about 1pm until at least 10pm.
It wasn't that simple though. The rain was
actually quite intermittent. It would rain for a
while, and then stop. Hlaf an hour, or maybe a
full hour later it would rain again. It seemed
very random. The only constant was that it was a
cold day with the temperature never getting higher
than 8° C, and then for only a few hours.
Unless the weather forecast radically
changes soon, today is predicted to be like
yesterday, but worse. Being heavily overcast is
bad enough, but it will also be a rather wet and
cold day ! I've now checked the latest revision to
the forecast, and it is now looking worse. The
latest revision says the rain will start soon
(although it is looking very wet outside already),
and will soon turn to heavy rain. It may finish
with some drizzle at 10pm tonight. Instead of all
the afternoon being 7° C, as in the screenshot
above, the latest revision says it will be 7° C
for just a few hours, and 6° C will be a more
typical temperature for most of today. Tomorrow
may well start with a frost, but at the moment it
is predicted to feature sunny spells all day long,
and the afternoon temperature could peak at 10° C.
I didn't feel that good yesterday morning,
although it didn't stop me going out to do some
shopping. I first headed to the high street to use
a cash machine, and then did a small shop in
Iceland, and another in Poundstretcher. It was
quite strange while I was out. I seemed to have a
lot of energy, and it felt good to be moving, but
I did have to cope with some nasty pains. I can
only describe it as like a small rat running
around in my torso, and taking the occasional nip
here and there.
I think most pains were probably associated
with certain movements, but I could never be sure
what exactly those movements were. I guess I was
too busy concentrating on the pain rather what I
had just done that probably caused it. It was very
strange how these stabbing pains would pop up for
probably less than a minute in totally different
places. Some would be in the top of my chest, and
some lower down in the belly region. Some would be
on the left, and some on the right. I expect it
was all my organs dying one at a time.
I can't recall and pains once I got home,
and was no longer wearing a rucksack, or carrying
shopping. I think the rucksack may have been the
cause of some of the pains. It was probably the
gyrations involved in putting my arms through the
straps, and sometimes having to resettle the
straps if they were starting to slip. While the
obvious pains stopped when I was indoors, I still
felt a bit achey. Fortunately the one thing I
didn't feel was very cold like I did the previous
day. (I wonder if that was fever - I'm sure it
must have been).
It was early afternoon when I decided to
try a kill or cure test. I hand washed three
t-shirts and four pairs of underpants. Hand
washing takes a fair bit of energy - all that
lifting of waterlogged clothing, and the wringing
out of the same. It can usually raise a bit of
sweat, and I think it did yesterday. It was
interesting in that despite some muscular ache
from the hands and arms, when wringing stuff out,
it had no lasting detrimental effect on me. That
must prove something, but I have no idea what.
I didn't get very far, but I finally say
down and started editing one of the transfers I
had made from analogue cassette tape to digital
wave files on my PC. As I think I mentioned
recently, I have opted to do the editing on my old
laptop, booted into Windows XP, and using Cool
Edit Pro. It made working on the left and right
channels so easy. As a for instance, when using
the gain (volume) control you are presented with
two sliders that can be locked together, or
changed individually. It seems such an obvious
idea that I don't know why Audacity does not do
it, but that only shows a single slider for gain
control.
Before I could start editing I had a small
difficulty to overcome. I was hoping to be able to
use my bluetooth speakers, but Windows would not
see them as being available for audio. I have the
same problem with older versions of Linux. The
simple solution was to connect the speakers using
a connecting lead - but first I had to try and
find a long enough lead. Once they were connected
I could start editing the audio. The first thing
was to correct an imbalance between the left and
right channels - a very simple job in Cool Edit.
The next job was to find, and mark the
beginning and end of each song. Once again Cool
Edit helps a lot because you can save markers
where this happens. I am unaware of any way of
doing that in Audacity. After finding the join
between the first and second song I was beginning
to think the sound was a bit harsh, and needed a
bit of equalising. Reducing some of the mid range
frequencies seemed to make it sound a bit better,
but nothing is ever going to make it "Hi Fi". It
has a very typical "live in a pub" sound -
complete with background noises, and at the mercy
of the room's acoustics. One positive thing is
that the sound is not too distorted, and the words
to the songs can be heard fine most of the time.
I probably spent less than an hour on that
audio editing, and as dinner time approached I
saved my work so I can carry on with it later. My
eating was all over the place yesterday. It is not
easy to eat very carefully when feeling unwell. I
still watched out for any overt sources of sugar,
but my calorie intake was probably a lot higher
than is good for me. In some ways my dinner helped
me to feel a bit better, but through the evening I
still felt off colour in ways that it is hard to
pinpoint.
When it came time to go to bed I think I
fell asleep easily, and slept well until just
before sunrise. I had got up a couple of times in
the night, but as far as I can recall I would get
back to sleep within minutes of getting back into
bed. That wasn't the case when the very hint of
the coming dawn could be seen. No matter how I
tried, I just could not get back to sleep again.
Now, a couple of hours later, it feels like I
haven't slept for a week. I don't seem to feel too
good this morning.
Once again I have some aches and pains -
just random assorted joints and muscles, but maybe
it would be more accurate to say stiffness rather
than an ache in some cases. One slightly unusual
case is my back. Now and then I get a little
lower, or sometimes upper back pain, but
thankfully it is fairly rare. This morning my
whole back feels sort of mildly stiff. It's not
really any bother, but it is worth recording as
another symptom of whatever I am suffering from.
One other rather general symptom could be a
hangover if I had any reason to get a hangover -
which I didn't think I do. I have a very mild, but
very annoying headache, and I feel what I can only
describe as "horrible". I really wish I could be
more specific about what "horrible" means.
Sometimes it feels like someone has turned the
strength of gravity up. Sometimes it feels like my
brains want to escape through my nose. The one
symptom I don't have is any trouble breathing, and
so this can't be Corvid-19 - aka Corona virus. It
does feel like 'flu-lite - which apparently does
not exist.
At the moment this malady is not so bad
that it would prevent me doing anything I wished
to do, but I have to acknowledge that it does make
wish to not do much. The only thing of any
importance today is my regular late Thursday
afternoon drinking session. I expect that I will
be able to go out for it this afternoon, but I
wonder if I should ? If what I have is an
infectious disease, instead of just slow organ
death as my body wears out, it would probably be
sensible to isolate myself. Oh well, I'll make
that decision nearer the time.
Here's something I can recall seeing around
the neighbourhood before - a clamped car. I didn't
get close enough to read the notice stuck to the
drivers door, but I seem to recall that I thought
it had Lewisham Council's logo on it. Some suggest
that the driver hasn't paid his road tax. I
wondered if the owner hadn't renewed his residents
parking permit. When I go out next I will make a
point of checking what that notice says.
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