In which the Rodent contemplates its own nails.

My nail beds grow to a point, extending invisibly under the white of the nail in a thin overhang of sensitive quick. Because of this, I eventually discovered that the best way to cut my nails was to a point, claw-like, following the shape of the nail bed in a Gothic arch. Moth looooooooves my nails when they are freshly sharpened and has been getting happily stoned on the action of rubbing her chin on the points. It made it very hard to get up from the sofa and get moving. The purring. My gods, the purring!

Moving around this afternoon made me contrast it with the recent patch of depression. Instead of it taking five hours to get moving at all, I was downstairs and scrubbing dishes in less than an hour from blearily looking at the clock. I've cleaned a patch of goodness knows what from around Moth's feeding station, wiped the kitchen, sorted out the day's post, put a hook in the door for Pol's keys so I can hang up my 'to be returned' post bag too, had breakfast (with real coffee), examined the lawnmower and the new blade (must ring Tim at fiveish to ask for correct sized spanner to borrow), moved Pol's grandad's coffee table to my room to use as a computer stand at the end of the bed, taken books downstairs, cleared the coffee table (and filled it again), checked the kitchen bin and had time to watch telly too. I was awake at 1:26pm and it's now 2:54pm.

The readiness to go is down to lack of depression, which saps the will to get moving or to stop one thing and move to another. It's an ongoing state of forever. The ability to move without much pain I am putting down to a judicious glass of Happy Fun Cocodamol before going to sleep. Current pain is about a three or four. I am aware of it without having to concentrate on it, but it's not stopping me from doing anything.

Just now, I am procrastinating getting washed and dressed and finding my return prescription to take to the doc. I am nearly out of beta blockers. I have enough Happy Fun Cocodamol to withstand a siege and I am not going to be shy about using it this week, since going without narcotics has been doing me no good at all.

In which the Rodent returns home to Mousehaven.

Today started well, in 100% cotton bedding, which I don't think I've appreciated loudly enough, and went on to include a bath, a breakfast of Chinese food and an escort to Euston including help carrying my bags to the train. I thought I was in coach A, so we walked along the long, long train all the way to the end where coach A was. Then, once on the train, with my bags, I looked at the ticket again to see which seat I was in. It was seat 20A. In coach C. Oops.

The journey went along much like that, with long stops, people eating loudly, someone loudly trying to rearrange the transport system to his liking with extra platforms at Stoke on Trent for services to Derby and so on, and the usual pounding head and waves of nausea.

I passed the time reading Intelligent Life, which is a magazine the Economist have out, mostly online, but with an additional glossy coffee-table magazine which I thought I would enjoy more than I did. It seemed somehow a little smug and over glossy and shallow, where the online things I saw before were fun. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood.

I survived that journey, and the long, long, long walk (with bags) to platform 14, and the incredibly crowded train from Manchester to Bolton, which is to be expected if you will try to travel at the height of rush hour as I did. I managed to get off the train, but I squished somebody doing it, which fact does not make me unhappy, but was unavoidable. I kept giving her a chance to move ahead before plastering herself to the side of a seat where she could at least lean over a seated passenger, but she would stay at the seat backs and so, she got squished by me and my bags. There were three very impatient and larger men with large suitcases behind me, so she is probably very squished. :0(


The taxi back was simple and easy, although the rain was something to behold. There had been a period of blat around Stoke on Trent, which Pol says has been there for a week or so. Some sort of water dragon or something? There was more blat in Bolton after some fine days while I was away. I have a little weather doohickey that keeps me informed of what it's like outside for days when I don't want to look.

Back at Mousehaven, Tiff was pleased to receive a bag of Tootsie Rolls and assorted associated sweets, and showed off a very clean home. I usually keep on top of things, just about, but this was a house that had been attacked in a determined manner by someone fit and well. It's nice. Everything sparkles.

I put on a beef and vegetable stew which will now be tomorrow's dinner, but was meant to be tonight's. Celery, carrot, leek, onion, red pepper, beef and flavourings. It has used all the veg left over from my last shopping trip, leaving an empty drawer ready for tomorrow's assorted vegetable goodness. I love having veg on sale so close.

After really only seeing Tiff in passing, I deserted her and vanished upstairs to spend time with Pol, who had clearly missed me. I ended up going with him to the pub meet, feeling unusually fit and ready to go, despite I think zero drugs of any kind all day. I blame a week of good feeding and company for that. We nearly missed dinner, but Wendy rescued us and ordered on our behalf and we got everything, including some really nice falling-off-the-bone lamb in the richest thickest gravy ever, and a banananana split.


Then back home, to play with Moth, who had found some carrier bags that were getting uppity and wanted my help, with a stick, to make sure they were suppressed as firmly as they should be. She's now by my side, purring madly and gently reaching for me with a paw when she thinks I have neglected scratching her head for too long.

I had a really, really good time away, but it's so nice to be home.

In which the Rodent tries a multitude of flavours.

Yesterday is a tribute to painkillers. I was having a rotten migraine day, but had cocodamol before going out and life was suddenly much better.

I introduced Ruthi to custard mochi before we left. The cakes were declared to be terribly, terribly wrong. Mochi are small cakes made from glutinous rice flour, so giving a texture like putty. Starch stops the mochi sticking to your finger. The outside is translucent white when uncoloured, but they're often green or pink or some other pastel shade. The centre can be filled with many things. In this case, they were filled with a hard lump of custard. They were so very wrong that Ruthi had to have two to be sure of their wrongness.

Then we set out for Hummus Bros, the hummus restaurant of London Town. They're a very, very friendly outfit that serve hummus in a circle with some sort of flavouring. Phillipa tried the hummus to see if the substance might eat her brain. Brain uneaten, she had char sui pork with hers. Ruthi had beef, ccooke had one with chicken and one with beef and I had Greek salad. Ruthi had smoked aubergine too, and declared it good. I apparently would have liked mine too if I wasn't wrong. As wrong as custard mochi.

We then had malabi with date honey, made from dates but not by bees. After that, I told the server that we'd talked among ourselves and had been so impressed by the quality of the food that we'd all decided we'd like to pay them for it. After overcoming her shock and awe, she presented us with a bill and free fresh-picked-mint tea. Except for Ruthi, who did not get any because she already had mint tea. And because she is wrong. As wrong as custard mochi.

After that, I was tricked, cruelly tricked, into going to Cybercandy. I found there some Ubuntu cola, but they didn't have a diet version. This is probably a good thing, since I know Pol hates Ubuntu. Naturally, Ubuntu cola is fair trade.

I also got sweetie sprays, sour watermelon and hot cinnamon. The hot cinnamon is not actually hot, but the watermelon sugar-free spray is excellent. They'd be great for telephone workers who can't eat sweeties while working but still get bored. Spray, mmm for a few minutes and you can still talk. They seem very, very weird as a concept but having tried them, I like them very much.

After this, we went back, saying goodbye to Phillipa on the way, to sit and talk and let ccooke notice the luxury Valentine's Day Marmite now on the shelves. He was suitably appalled. I think soon we'll find out how it tastes.

All in all, yesterday was very much a day of flavours and drugs. Yay drugs.

In which the Rodent goes to a nice pub and goes shopping.

I'm being spoiled rotten. Isn't that awful? Ruthi's been running around making sure that I have food and am comfortable and it's all working very well.

Yesterday we went to this fantastic pub, where people do things together, such as play games or make collage or just things it's more fun to do in a group than alone. They also have magazines, books and bar-billiards. The food at the pub is good, and it is a real ale, real whisky and real soft drink pub. It's so wholesome.


We played this strange game called Carcassonne, involving building roads and rivers and cities to gain points. It's insanely complicated. I was very distracted the whole time by Fretchen the ferret, the cutest fuzzball I've ever met. I had a migraine of course, but it wasn't enough to stop me enjoying myself. A six at worst.

We go there again on Sunday.
Meanwhile, back in Bolton, there's drama unfolding. Flitter is talking to husband, heavily mediated by someone who's been overseeing the entire drama, and we may get our spare room back by the time I get home. I didn't think she'd still be there when I got back, but she's allegedly going to stay long enough to do a few things in friendly togetherness.

Today's friendly togetherness with Ruthi was a visit to a supermarket, in fact to two supermarkets. One was the Chinese supermarket on the high street in Walthamstowe, where I got many snacks. Preserved plums are too strong for me to enjoy, but now plum tea and the way it tastes are fully explained. Actually, perhaps I should use one to make plum tea.

I also have wasabi broad beans, prune cream toffees, lychee pudding and I already drank the tamarind juice drink and ate chess cakes with coffee. There's lots more to go.

In which the Rodent visits Hall i' th' Wood and is depressed the following day.

Yesterday Pol, myself and our new lodger all went to Hall i' th' Wood (pronounced Hollith Wood) in Bolton. It's a Tudor building, which was owned by various people in history, including the Crompton family. One of the Cromptons of the house was named Samuel. His mother span cotton and I think his father wove. Samuel Crompton was interested in this, but thought the method too laborious. He looked at the Spinning Jenny and came up with the Spinning Mule, and the rest is mills, cloth caps, custard tarts and industrial history. One of the founders of the industrial revolution did all his thinking in a little room in a nice, but very warped, Tudor house in the north of what is now Bolton Town.

Time moved on and the Hall i' th' Wood fell into disrepair - people were too busy with the new factories and mills and the fall of the British Empire. It was getting decidedly ricketty when this chap named Lever was looking around for philanthropic uses of the money he'd made selling Sunlight Soap with his brother. (The Lever Bros. company is now of course the giant Unilever.) He picked up the Hall some time after he picked up the title Lord Leverhulme and messed about with it until he decided that it would make a nice museum for day to day artefacts of past life.

So now it's there, with a Tudor hall, kitchen and dairy, a nice staircase, a 17th century dining room and withdrawing room (complete with discrete garderobe), a few rooms given over to Samuel Crompton and his family (and his walking stick and death mask) and some really enthusiastic staff. The signposting was appalling, but once we found it, it was great. A nice day out, then back to the house.

Today I'm up, washed, dressed, fed and ready to deal with life. It's only taken me twelve hours... I'm mildly depressed (no surprise in January) which means I spend too long thinking about what I am about to do but lacking the get up and go to do it. I get things done, but it takes a while to get moving. Then I daren't stop in case I don't get going again. Thank goodness for cuppas.

I spent five hours this morning sitting playing Bejeweled and Peggle before I could drag myself downstairs to get my first cuppa of the day and breakfast. Five hours. I was hungry. It's silly. I knew at the time it was, but the will to move was just not there. That's depression for you. Luckily, making sure I am clean and well fed does stop the worthless and hopeless parts.

I don't have a little grey goblin counting coins of self-deprecation out loud. I hate that goblin so much. It sits there in your head, and you can hear it. 'You're worthless. You're stupid. Look at the stupid thing you did.' Like little greasy coins of shame.

I wonder what the chemical is in your brain that gives you the effort of will that lets you get moving once you've decided to act. It's definitely less in depressives - serotonin probably, although I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be something else that serotonin acts on.

I have migraines as well, naturally, but they're only at a level to make me irritable and I haven't had to curl up and cry with them all day. I did have a glass of port at 11ish to make sure. I only dare eat so much aspirin and I want to save this week's dosage of narcotics for when I am in London.

In which the Rodent moves three times its own weight in furniture.

I woke up in the middle of the night sweating, with sharp pains in my chest and stomach and with my heart going at about 120bpm as though I'd just done a short sprint up a hill. Couple in the aching, lactic muscles and this is a typical ME attack presaging a day of extreme flueyness and lack of spoons. No wonder after the day I've had.

A friend of ours has decided to drop the life they were living elsewhere and take up residence at Chez Rodent, so said Rodent went along to lug what furniture it can. Various others were there too, as muscle. I'm not wild about the circumstances of the flit, but it did have to happen sooner or later, so I did what I could. Two of us that had gone down in Pol's landrover ended up travelling back again in it with all the furniture, while the others, including the flitter, all went off for a nice large lunch, staying away until we'd both had plenty of time to eat lunch and then empty the entire landrover our own two selves. Which we did. Go us.

Part of lunch was a snack I like, frozen sweetcorn nuked in water for a minute or two with butter and cajun spice. It's delicious, quick, filling and one of your five a day. What more do you want in
a snack? The rest was, regrettably, nukeaburger with a slice of onion added. Mechanically recovered meat, plastic white, white bread, artificial 'tomatoey' ketchup and plastic cheese food product. Mmmm-mm. Sad to say, I enjoyed it. A Big Mac meal would have been healthier. But still. Sweetcorn!

Part of getting the room ready was moving all those damned books I've been working through for weeks. Those were bundled out of the way as best we could, and then the other person did all the heavy lifting while I put things in logical places. No opening of boxes, but the loose fragile stuff was put on shelves and the pictures were stacked together for ease of putting up.

After that, about an hour later, everyone else arrived and sat and clustered around flitter for pretty much the rest of the evening until I faded out and had to go to bed. I woke up to television noises in the state mentioned above. Miserable and sweating and with a sore back and a right leg that doesn't want to carry me. Time for milk, aspirin, propranolol and decaf coffee with bad television. Another few hours sleep and now it's 5:30 am and squalls are being forecast everywhere in the UK, it sounds like.

In a few hours the whole new household of three starts and I suspect I'll end up sleeping through most of it until I go to Lunnon for over a week. I'd like to be showing flitter how the house works, but with these weird sleeping spurts and other factors, I doubt I'll get a look in.

In which the Rodent spends a lot of time with one taxi driver.

First he took me to the hospital, for my pain clinic appointment. I went in, announced myself, handed over the letter, had it explained to me in small words that today is Wednesday the 16th of January, and not Tuesday the 15th of January. Or, as I'd been thinking, Wednesday the 15th. At least I had the right month.

They don't redo appointments for first timers who fail to show. Unless they're very, very stupid - apparently rank daftness gives you a free pass. I think I'll get Pol to enter my new appointment in the calendar so this doesn't happen again.

So then I called for a taxi, and they said back to $street? I said no, to the railway station. Back comes the driver, surprised to see me so soon and thinking he was taking me home again. I explained about being daft and wanting to buy train tickets while he took me to the railway station, where I bought train tickets, turning down late-night travel for £14 and plumping for a £62 return in the afternoon. Rush hour travel would be £245. It's not where you go, it's when you go...

Back into the same taxi, this time to home, as expected. We talked about train tickets and the prices, and then travel to Spain, and then about Seville! That was an easy subject, although he knew the parts I wasn't so aware of. I discovered I can't remember the name of any of the districts.

Now in and sitting down reluctant to move again today, and with Moth purring her heart out by my side, just where I can reach out and scratch her head. She seems happier now she's got wet food and will forgive me for yesterday soon.

Moth's fit and well and vaccinated, but she does not like being in a car for hours at a time, so we're changing vet. It's a shame, because Crown House Vets in Rochdale have been excellent to us and I don't want to leave. Moth disagrees, especially if she has to travel for an hour, then get rained on all the way to the door, then stuck with a needle (the part she minds least because she looooooooves vets), then back again, and, horror of horrors, not even a drop of evaporated milk, or even tuna cat food. Just dry biscuits and water. Poor cat.

Thanks to Pol, this deficit has since been remedied.

In which the Rodent gets ready to go to Rochdale.

It's 6:45am and Pol and I are both overwhelmingly enthusiastic about being awake at this hour. Yes indeedy. I'm now dressed, although not booted, coated, scarfed and hatted. Pol is getting into the bath I ran for him and presumably checking out the large cup of tea I made. I can be nice, sometimes.

I breakfasted on wood-smoked Skippers (brisling), which are very small, very delicious fish that will probably turn out to be ethically horrible, but they are so very, very delicious. Moth, when presented with a single fish in tomato sauce, carefully ate all the tomato sauce and left the fish intact. Well, then.

My little weather gadget tells me that outside it's raining, 7C and with the faintest of breezes. My clock says my room is at a massive 20.7C. No wonder Pol is complaining he's been cooked all night. I strongly suspect the heating has been left on, which means we will be short on gas. The landlord has finally agreed to real meters, on receipt of a £250 bond. Frankly, it'll pay for itself within a few months, so we're going for it.

I still have more books to sort than I know how to deal with, and I need to remember to bother Tim for clips and things since at the moment the room is full of what are just boxes until the rest is put together.

I want Rochdale to have a little snow on the hills when we go there. It doesn't have to be much. Then Pol goes off to his interview and I go back to Bolton in a taxi with an unhappy, freshly vaccinated cat.

My head hurts. I know this is not news. I'm pondering aspirin or just having a joyous pain-free day of Tramadol in return for the risk of a worse headache when I am safely tucked in bed, and possible nausea meanwhile. If I take Tramadol, I might be able to go shopping. I am running out of food and Moth's been down to just biscuits for a couple of days. It's a thought, isn't it?

In which the Rodent had its second flute lesson.

I don't like being awake at 2am, but it's a step closer to normal living; it's 'morning'. Another couple of days and I'll be back on everyone else's schedule, which makes it much easier to shop. Actually, even waking at 5am isn't bad for being ready to move when the shops are open, it just makes socialising a little difficult. Ideally, I wake at about 10 or 11, breakfast at 12ish and am ready to move at around 2pm.

My second flute lesson went well. I'd apparently put in enough practice to be able to play along to the music, and Alexandra seemed pleased. Today we covered the note A and had a look at G but my fingers cramped. Next time. I like her a lot.
After two lessons so close together, the next one is not for a long time, because of the trip to London. Which reminds me, I have to either get Barclays to make my card work with lboody Visa Verify (it works for everything else), OR get to a train station and buy cards manually from a person. For now, I have no tickets and the lack of getting is going to cost me.

The cat carrier is down for the trip to Crown House Vet in Rochdale. Moth was eyeing it dubiously. She gets catnip from there, but also trips to the vet, so she is not sure whether it being around is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. She's compromised in settling down by my side in a cottage loaf shape and purring loudly to remind me that she's exactly where my hand will reach.

In which the Rodent had a fruit smoothie.

Today's a lot better than the last few days. I've put through a load of laundry which is drying now and I'm confident I'll be able to put it away before I go for my second flute lesson at 4:30pm Monday.

Today I had the fruit smoothie I prepped Saturday night, with the flesh of two nectarines, a plum and about two dozen grapes, all peeled, with a large spoon of Belvoir cranberry cordial and the freshly ground seeds from one pod of green cardamom.

It was delicious. Then with pie, I had green beans nuked in a mixture of water, chicken OXO and some very, very nice English mustard. That was delicious as well.

All in all, I feel well taken care of, which is nice when it's me doing it. Pol's also looking fairly happy with life, or at least with this weekend. We've had enough together time and he's seen people he wanted to see.

I have loud, whistling tinnitus and an aching neck, which suggest the current respite from pain is about to end, but at least it's done it after I got through the chores for the day.

In which the Rodent contemplates life with constant pain.

I can remember a time when a headache like tonight's would have left me completely flattened for days. I woke up feeling dreadful, moaning in pain and wanting only for it to end, by whatever means. These days, it just means I take longer than usual to haul myself out of bed, wash, dress and go downstairs to my daily round of junk telly, snack meals and short bursts of housework. The pain is still bad, even unbearable, but you learn to get your body moving even while you're wanting to throw up.

I did end up raiding Pol's aspirin supply, which I'll try to replace this week, along with the bottle of aspirin I bought and then promptly lost. 900mg of aspirin will actually help the pain, bringing it from an 8 (utterly miserable and retching) down to a 5 or 6 (very much hurting but more or less functional if I don't try to do too much). I had a glass of port when the aspirin wore off and the rest has been a matter of gritting my teeth and getting through it, but it's getting less bad by the hour.

The last couple of days have been unusually headachey. I've also been awake all night and asleep all day. I can't help wondering if the two are connected, but I can't seem to manage to haul my sleep pattern to where it should be. At least today I did manage to get properly dressed and to eat more or less well. Duck pancakes, and tinned curry with peas added because I fancied peas. I peeled and chopped fruit for a smoothie tomorrow, but I can't make it now because it's 3am and Pol might be a little annoyed to be woken up this early.

Frozen peas are an incredible luxury. Back in Regency days, green garden peas were a short-lived seasonal delicacy which could sell for incredibly high prices. Even then, in the city, the peas would have been brought in from the countryside by horse and cart, and would have been losing freshness all the time they were travelling. It's one of those cases where frozen is better than fresh, as peas are delicate. Too much time, too much cooking and they lose that fantastic green sweet flavour. I can well believe that frozen peas, even 'frozen in the field', are not a patch on peas taken straight from the plants in your garden, but they're a very good second.

Some people swear by peas with garden mint. I can't abide mint anyway, and it's a ludicrously strong taste to impose on something as sweet and pleasant as garden peas. Just a little butter, or even nuked in a little hot water and eaten on their own, and peas are delicious.

In which the Rodent considers battery farming and drugs.

Today has been given over to the full enjoyment of migraines, of which I think I'm on my third so far. At least, it's peaked to 'completely miserable' (8) three times. At this level, I am not up to doing anything at all vigorous and moving makes me retch. I can just about cope with television to take my mind off things. In between the peaks, I washed up, cooked sausages and beans and toasted some marshmallows over the gas ring. Pol polished his shoes because it's interview season again.

I watched Jamie Oliver and his battery farming demonstrations, trying to convince people over toward longer-lived, slower growing, less intensively reared birds for meat and eggs. The MRM demonstration was interesting. I was thinking, as I watched the carcases being squeezed for meaty goo, of a very, very expensive dish produced in only a few restaurants: pressed duck. It needs special equipment, because part of the process is to put the basically raw bones of the duck into a press and crush them to get out the marrow juices. Why is this so rare and fine, and crushed chicken goo so disgustingly horrific? Frankly, I like that we can use every particle of the chicken in this way. If we're going to rear birds, we should use everything we can.

In which the Rodent has its first flute lesson.

It's now 19.7C in this room, or about as warm as it's been since I started taking note, but I am freezing; compare to when it was 11.2C and I was warm. Thus proving that my perception of temperature bears no relation, at all, to actual conditions. That said, I don't have a Hot Water Bottle to hand, so perhaps what it actually proves is that HWBs are magical objects of wonder.

My first flute lesson was tiring. I managed, eventually, to produce a B. One difficulty I'd had with the flute was explained by my having my right hand entirely the wrong way round, although the left was fine. I like my teacher and I like the shop that hosts the lessons. I'm booked for next week. It's £14 for a half hour lesson, one on one.

The end result of the lesson and all that brainwork was a very, very bad headache, so I am hiding upstairs nursing my 7-8 headache and hoping that pizza will make it better, since I already took some Happy Fun Cocodamol (soluble cocodamol 8/500) to get me through the lesson. Today hasn't been a good day - poor sleep led to me starting the day migrainous and it's carried on from there. Right now I want very much to throw up and cry. The good news is that even a crappy day isn't stopping me achieving something.

In which the Rodent enjoys artistic endeavours and Chinese food.

That was fun. Claire and Angela and Rob came round so we could do cards, which tomorrow I have to try to post. Tonight, they're drying. It was like being back at school, with a table full of bits to cut out, and people showing each other what they'd done, and paint getting everywhere. Claire did stars, Rob did a tree and a cracker, Angela did a penguin and I did a tree. They're all bright, cheerful and friendly.

The cards will be sent to Amnesty International, who will send them on to various prisoners in various places as a morale booster. I like the idea, and it's exactly the sort of thing I joined AI for. It tells political prisoners that, whatever else happens to them, they have not been forgotten by the world at large. I can get right behind that.

The Chinese restaurant sent us a new menu and one of the items on it, I discovered afterwards, is a platter of steamed buns, all different flavours. I am nuts for steamed buns, so I can't wait until next month's Chinese meal. I think it might well be Chinese New Year by then too, and I think the year of the Rat. I like Rat years.

Steamed buns are hard to make, which is a shame because their texture is fantastic - soft and not quite chewy. They're made from wheat flour, but what sort of wheat flour I don't know to turn out the bright, bleached white you get on restaurant steamed buns. The obvious ones are the steamed custard buns - since the pastry is doughy and sweet, this makes sense to the English palate. However, the pork buns, the char sui bao, are savoury pork in the same sweet, soft bun, and that seems very odd. I can't wait to try lotus bun, yam bun and peach bun.

In which the Rodent copes with a cold house by having hot cuppas.

My bedroom is currently a balmy and tropical 11.5 Celsius. It was 10.2 when I woke up. Since then, I've been out to go and buy more gas, since we were down to a fiver and that only just pays for Pol's daily bath and the washing up. I'm going to clamber over the sofa to jam the card into the meter and then put the heating on. Oddly enough, I'm quite warm at the moment, but then I am wearing a jumper and a cardigan, wool trousers and warm fluffy slippers, and, of course, the hat.

Outside, Bolton is looking very well after the squalls and thunder last night. There doesn't seem to be any damage. I did hear on the radio about trees being down somewhere or other.

Going out has left me tired and migrainous, but not so much I can't enjoy life. Say about a 5, where I can more or less do things but it's sore. In theory, I should be very, very poorly because I did a lot on Monday and it's been cold, a major trigger. I feel... slightly achey. Healthy, almost, other than the dragging headache in one eye and the slight nausea.

Just about everything I had been watching on the telly has been taken off again. My day used to have double Scrubs, DIY SOS and a few other things in. Now it's Ray Mears and A&E, and it's just not the same. It might be sad to build my day around television, but it works. I huddle under a duvet watching television, then during the breaks I do housework. The programme coming on gives me an excuse to stop what I am doing and take a rest, which may be helping the M.E. and does stop me triggering major migraine from hell. The programme finishing gets me wanting a cuppa, which gets me on my feet, which is good for stopping me wallowing in winter depression.

If I'm on the computer, I tend to just stay on for hours, unless I sit on the edge of the bed like now in a cold room with no cuppa and only Radio Four for company. Radio Four gets me awake and ready to get up in the first place.

In which the Rodent recovers from Monday and considers pigs.

It feels like the clearout was two days ago, since I've slept twice since then, finally emerging today at 3pm in an unenthusiastic effort to go back to being productive. I've changed the duvet cover for the sitting room nest, to a nice new embroidered and sequinned one in white and a beige old gold, a horrible colour on its own but one which looks nice with all the 'light oak' panelling all about. I've also put a white load in to wash for clean bedding later, and started folding a red load.

I'm definitely very sore. Since I had a few naproxen left over, I've taken one of them this morning, but what I would really have liked is some basic aspirin. It's sore muscle pain from doing too much while unfit, and it's very, very different from the fluey ache of doing too much while MEish. In my experience, M.E. pain only responds to opiates for some reason. If I want to do things, I can, it just hurts. With M.E., I can want all I want, my muscles aren't going to do as I ask. Trying hard isn't enough and nor is a positive mental attitude. Whereas, by contrast, today I am getting by on bloody mindedness and drugs.

I watched television - mostly what I paid attention to was a Discovery programme from 2005 on Hogzilla, a monster hog killed in the swamps of Georgia. The whole point of the programme was whether or not Hogzilla was really 12 feet long (about 4m) and weighed a thousand pounds (450kg, give or take). Naturally they took an hour to answer this simple question, with lots of scaremongering about packs of wild boar poised to overwhelm Texas and Britain, breeding massively and probably eating children. If they're going to be supersized wild boar, then we're all doomed! Doomed! So, was it as big as claimed?

The answer after digging the corpse up, was no. It's still a very big pig, seven and a half feet (2.3 metres). It's more like Rooter and Tusker from Terry Pratchett's Hogfather than the little piggy that went whee, whee, whee all the way home. It had huge tusks and hair, but features of domestic pigs too. And now it's dead.

Today's foodstuff is pork. Pigs exist almost everywhere humans have been, and the feral ones are a menace to wildlife, eating bird eggs, animals living and dead and digging up plants with their incredibly powerful snouts. If you have feral pigs nearby, introduced animals, not native wild pigs, then it is your solemn duty to eat them.

Pork fillet is very nice sprinkled with some olive oil, with a little black pepper ground on and a sprinkle of sage and very little thyme, and baked in foil in a hot oven for about fifteen minutes.

In which the Rodent introduces itself to the blogosphere.

I decided I should have a blog. I have a livejournal - Supermouse is my username there - and lately I've been happily wittering on it again, but the idea of an actual blog is attractive, if only as somewhere to eventually place strange links.

I don't do anything much, because I am usually too ill to work, which means also too ill to go out much. Currently I am paying for an active day with some severely aching muscles, so I am awake at an unearthly hour and bored.

Today's foodstuff is Saint Agur Blue, a soft, squidgy blue cheese with a very rich flavour which isn't as bitter as most blues - it is more umami than bitter, creamy enough to please those ambivalent about blue cheeses and not so salty that it won't go well with digestive biscuits. It's my favourite blue cheese for having with things. I only discovered it a couple of years ago and fell in love with its malleable texture. I didn't know blue cheese could be so gooey. In England I see it most often sold in a characteristic dark green wedge-shaped cardboard container on a plastic tray. Try it on a poppy seed biscuit with a slice of raw carrot.