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 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.