It's been snowing, raining and beginning to blow outside, thankfully after I finished a nice hour-long walk. Bolton Primary Care Trust have come to the conclusion that more people would walk if they had someone to walk with. I filled in the questionnaire last year that helped them to come to this conclusion. The result is a set of Get Active walks, where you turn up at, in this case, a local library and all set off together to tramp around a country park, taking in the sights and keeping up a flow of inconsequential chatter as a nice distraction from the fact you're outside in the freezing cold being weathered upon.
It works. I've spent a full hour, more than, walking around. On my own, I get too tired in ten minutes. I'm looking forward to going and doing it again. This after doing two sessions of tai chi over the weekend (I seriously recommend tai chi) and various running around for a science fiction convention.
Part of the mental discipline is going to be finding something innocuous to talk about while doing it. I've got a leaflet, Zeppelins over Lancashire, from the Bolton museum, so I'll read up and be able to spout off at will with any luck. I'm having a lot of fun gathering local knowledge and putting down roots like a dandelion.
I didn't feel, somehow, that I could share my memories of a fascinating weekend learning how to deal with a Cyberman invasion. Or about the really cool person in the really cool Jack Harkness outfit who got chosen to lead a team on account of being the most smartly dressed (and most hung over and least able to wriggle out of it.) Or the fun of watching a scenario writer seeing her scenario get played out and enjoyed while all goes to happy chaos. Or the mummer in a flame costume collecting money, or the table full of body parts, or the new author hawking his book (Johnny Nexus is his name, I forget the title of his book but I'm enjoying it so far). Or how cool it is to watch someone you know run a panel next to one of their heroes and manage to look as though he does this all the time.
I did share the tale of Pol giving me a lift back to the Travel Lodge and leaving me in the Landrover to go and get something. As he was coming back, the weather suddenly came up, with literally howling winds. There was a crow trying to land in a tree and being blown back, but it managed to get a grip and, once safe, sat watching poor Pol struggling across the car park as about twenty tonnes of hail and rain were dumped upon his head and blown up his nose. I was digging hail out of his ear when he got back. Of course, as soon as he got into the car and closed the door, all the rain and hail stopped.
We went off to get Moth and the traffic was so awful I had to call my flute teacher. She postponed me until 4:30 and I got through the lesson, albeit badly. I've had two doses of cocodamol and I feel not too bad now. Headachey but it's bearable. It's definitely a migraine. I'm not getting the space between migraines I was hoping for but I am functional and I am only taking about 50mg per day, and not even every day.
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Monday, 3 March 2008
In which the Rodent ably alliterates about a political porker.
Pol says it always snows on his birthday and outside it is cold enough that all the wheelie bins are frozen shut under a layer of sticky ice.
Yesterday's flute lesson didn't go very well. I got started but was only a few minutes in when migraine struck with shaking hands, loss of coordination and weird visual effects, none of which make for deft flute-playing. Poor Alex is stuck with a very slow student. I got home, dosed myself with the cocodamol Pol so kindly went out and got and was fine thereafter. Thanks to loadsadrugs, pain hasn't crept much over the 8 mark. 8 still has me confined to bed and deeply unhappy, but it's not dangerous. I ran out of cocodamol for a while and had to have 30mg codeine. It stopped the pain excellently well and I got a lot done under it's influence. Yay drugs.
My shopping has all arrived. So much! Part of the expense was a duvet for the spare room so that we can have visitors without it impacting my ability to huddle downstairs watching telly and clutching my HWB in the early hours.
Speaking of which, Moth woke me up at 4am very agitated and insisted on being in my room. She wouldn't go on the bed to her usual place but would only sit next to the bedside on the structural bodge-job that serves me as a bedside table. Coincidentally, my HWB had just started leaking and was making me damp, but luckily not too much escaped and the bed is drying out already. I'll check it in a little while but I think that the top wasn't done tightly enough and I'd been sleeping on it, and because it was cool it had been allowed to unravel from the towel it's usually wrapped in.
Moth's currently elsewhere in the house, ignoring me again.
The bulk of the shopping is food, including a few new store cupboard items like black treacle and rice wine vinegar. I have chicken defrosting from last night, ready to pretend to be the rabbit in the recipe I posted. I'll separate the skins and have them roasted as a snack, because there's nothing I like more than fresh, hot chicken crackling.
I'm not sure whether to cook the Somerset beef today as well, in the slow cooker, or gamble on having enough energy on Friday to do it then. Pol's away for a few days, so it would be nice, I think, for him to come back to a hot beef stew thing, although I don't know how much he'll like the finished result. The other point is that I'll have a few more plastic containers by then from having Chinese food. Most of all of these dishes will be frozen for my bad days.
On a food-related note, there's a rally in London today organised by the National Pig Association or NPA, to protest the falling price of pork. British pork is raised to slightly higher welfare standards than the rest of the EU, which isn't really saying much. (If you buy pork from happy pigs, they were probably doing all right.)
Corn, both maize and wheat, is more expensive just now. According to various news sources I've trawled, lots of maize is being taken to make ethanol in an attempt to green up. Because maize is now worth more, it's being planted in areas that used to be used to grow wheat. Both these grains are used in bulk to make animal feed and that's painfully pinching the purses of pork producers. Hence the protest.
I mention this partly because there's a forecast pork shortage which means fewer bacon sarnies, which is a dreadful thought, and partly because former mayoral candidate Winnie the Pig will be marching alongside the NPA to show her support. She might have been blocked from standing for London Mayor by speciesism, but that hasn't stopped her political career.
Yesterday's flute lesson didn't go very well. I got started but was only a few minutes in when migraine struck with shaking hands, loss of coordination and weird visual effects, none of which make for deft flute-playing. Poor Alex is stuck with a very slow student. I got home, dosed myself with the cocodamol Pol so kindly went out and got and was fine thereafter. Thanks to loadsadrugs, pain hasn't crept much over the 8 mark. 8 still has me confined to bed and deeply unhappy, but it's not dangerous. I ran out of cocodamol for a while and had to have 30mg codeine. It stopped the pain excellently well and I got a lot done under it's influence. Yay drugs.
My shopping has all arrived. So much! Part of the expense was a duvet for the spare room so that we can have visitors without it impacting my ability to huddle downstairs watching telly and clutching my HWB in the early hours.
Speaking of which, Moth woke me up at 4am very agitated and insisted on being in my room. She wouldn't go on the bed to her usual place but would only sit next to the bedside on the structural bodge-job that serves me as a bedside table. Coincidentally, my HWB had just started leaking and was making me damp, but luckily not too much escaped and the bed is drying out already. I'll check it in a little while but I think that the top wasn't done tightly enough and I'd been sleeping on it, and because it was cool it had been allowed to unravel from the towel it's usually wrapped in.
Moth's currently elsewhere in the house, ignoring me again.
The bulk of the shopping is food, including a few new store cupboard items like black treacle and rice wine vinegar. I have chicken defrosting from last night, ready to pretend to be the rabbit in the recipe I posted. I'll separate the skins and have them roasted as a snack, because there's nothing I like more than fresh, hot chicken crackling.
I'm not sure whether to cook the Somerset beef today as well, in the slow cooker, or gamble on having enough energy on Friday to do it then. Pol's away for a few days, so it would be nice, I think, for him to come back to a hot beef stew thing, although I don't know how much he'll like the finished result. The other point is that I'll have a few more plastic containers by then from having Chinese food. Most of all of these dishes will be frozen for my bad days.
On a food-related note, there's a rally in London today organised by the National Pig Association or NPA, to protest the falling price of pork. British pork is raised to slightly higher welfare standards than the rest of the EU, which isn't really saying much. (If you buy pork from happy pigs, they were probably doing all right.)
Corn, both maize and wheat, is more expensive just now. According to various news sources I've trawled, lots of maize is being taken to make ethanol in an attempt to green up. Because maize is now worth more, it's being planted in areas that used to be used to grow wheat. Both these grains are used in bulk to make animal feed and that's painfully pinching the purses of pork producers. Hence the protest.
I mention this partly because there's a forecast pork shortage which means fewer bacon sarnies, which is a dreadful thought, and partly because former mayoral candidate Winnie the Pig will be marching alongside the NPA to show her support. She might have been blocked from standing for London Mayor by speciesism, but that hasn't stopped her political career.
Sunday, 2 March 2008
In which the Rodent battles depression to win biscuit goodness.
I visited the pain clinic and wrote here about how the psychologist seemed more interested in lowering my expectations than in offering to work with me to get a handle on all this pain. The overall impression I got was very negative. I get very upset about being in so much pain and the unhopeful prognosis, so I ended up dropping into a pit of depression for a few days. Insomnia, crying, feelings of hopelessness, you name it. I've had an awful few days emotionally speaking.
As part of clawing my way out of the pit, I spent a while planning my next week's meals and ordering the necessary food and I stuck to my list of ten as much as I could. I emailed the Samaritans at a point where I felt like ending it all and texted the long-suffering Hunter early in the morning to remind myself that other people were alive and I wasn't all alone. Pol spent a chunk of that morning giving me a hug and tell me aw there there. I spent a chunk of that afternoon giving him a hug and telling him aw there there. These days we seem, I think, to be a lot better at being there for each other.
Just now he's away for the weekend. I haven't felt like grabbing people and suggesting a quick jaunt to Blackpool but it's definitely something to do another day.
So, today I feel better. I got to bed at eleven, got to sleep probably about twelvish and didn't wake up until 2pm. Not what I wanted, but I feel so much better today I'll accept that I needed to sleep for thirteen or fourteen hours. Since I'd been feeling MEish as well as depressed, it's not unexpected. Sometimes a bout of ME will get better after a marathon kip.
I did my ten. I got myself a bath and got dressed. I went outside and looked to see if anything is sprouting. I collected rubbish. I practiced flute. I fussed Moth and got her a fresh hot water bottle. I got myself lunch; breakfast was one the oatmeal and ginger biscuits I baked yesterday and a raw carrot. Lunch was baked sweet potato, sausages and steamed bok choy. I didn't finish it in one go and I've just finished the last of it, nuked hot again, now. I had the last biscuit I baked as a snack and I have frozen part-baked biscuits and frozen dry mix in the freezer ready to go.
Go me!
Out in the wider world, the euro news had a report yesterday on what seemed to be a hurricane, hurricane Emma that had hit Germania and chunks of southern Scandewegia. I know we've had force eleven winds here in Britain because I caught the shipping forecast. I couldn't find any mention of hurricane force winds in Europe on Google or the BBC but a friend on Livejournal has since told me that it was indeed Hurricane Emma, that it did just flick Britain with its tail and she pointed me to some relevant news sites.
As part of clawing my way out of the pit, I spent a while planning my next week's meals and ordering the necessary food and I stuck to my list of ten as much as I could. I emailed the Samaritans at a point where I felt like ending it all and texted the long-suffering Hunter early in the morning to remind myself that other people were alive and I wasn't all alone. Pol spent a chunk of that morning giving me a hug and tell me aw there there. I spent a chunk of that afternoon giving him a hug and telling him aw there there. These days we seem, I think, to be a lot better at being there for each other.
Just now he's away for the weekend. I haven't felt like grabbing people and suggesting a quick jaunt to Blackpool but it's definitely something to do another day.
So, today I feel better. I got to bed at eleven, got to sleep probably about twelvish and didn't wake up until 2pm. Not what I wanted, but I feel so much better today I'll accept that I needed to sleep for thirteen or fourteen hours. Since I'd been feeling MEish as well as depressed, it's not unexpected. Sometimes a bout of ME will get better after a marathon kip.
I did my ten. I got myself a bath and got dressed. I went outside and looked to see if anything is sprouting. I collected rubbish. I practiced flute. I fussed Moth and got her a fresh hot water bottle. I got myself lunch; breakfast was one the oatmeal and ginger biscuits I baked yesterday and a raw carrot. Lunch was baked sweet potato, sausages and steamed bok choy. I didn't finish it in one go and I've just finished the last of it, nuked hot again, now. I had the last biscuit I baked as a snack and I have frozen part-baked biscuits and frozen dry mix in the freezer ready to go.
Go me!
Out in the wider world, the euro news had a report yesterday on what seemed to be a hurricane, hurricane Emma that had hit Germania and chunks of southern Scandewegia. I know we've had force eleven winds here in Britain because I caught the shipping forecast. I couldn't find any mention of hurricane force winds in Europe on Google or the BBC but a friend on Livejournal has since told me that it was indeed Hurricane Emma, that it did just flick Britain with its tail and she pointed me to some relevant news sites.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)