In which the Rodent settles back home and catches up.

I've been away, first to Nottingham, then to London. This has made it impossible to update my blog. It's also mean doing a lot of travelling, alone, which I got through just fine, even with all the physical work involved.

It's also meant taking Tramadol nearly every day for several weeks, and I want a break, even if it makes me very headachey. So I am taking a break from any sort of opiates and I've kept my calendar more or less empty. On Monday I have a flute lesson, Tuesday I have a walk in the morning, Wednesday I'll take drugs because we're having an evening of painting and chat and that's a huge problem without the drugs.

Day two drugless and I am headachey but still able to enjoy life. I am eating Skittles Crazy Sours when the pain hits, as a distraction. Oddly, the pain isn't much worse than without the opiates, but my thoughts are starting to scatter. Yesterday was very busy, cold and wet. Today is bright and sunny after a cold, wet start. Neither weather pattern fills me with joy. Getting everything done I wanted to have done does make my life joyful. However, it's getting more difficult to join my thoughts together and do anything needing concentration or memory.

I have an appointment for relaxation training with the Pain Clinic, finally. It's this month, even.

In which the Rodent makes fish pie.

Today's not a bad day, although I am considering a nap before people turn up tonight. I woke up at half past four in the morning again and used the time to clean up, watch telly and get Pol his breakfast.

I don't feel quite up to going out, but given all of yesterday's activity, that is to be expected. I did have enough energy to make a fish pie.

This is my first attempt at a home made fish pie, so the recipe follows exactly what happened. The final recipe will of course be altered to produce a better result.

Home made fish pie.

Take two fillets of coley defrosted the night before.
Put on baking tray and sprinkle with sunflower oil.
Add a lime leaf to the top of each and cover only the top of each fillet with a tinfoil hat to protect it from scorching and thetans.
Place into cold oven because you forgot to preheat, at gas mark 4
Set timer for fifteen minutes.

Peel and slice five small/medium maris piper or other mashing potatoes.
Cover in cold water in a thin-walled pan and put on to cook. Immediately wash knife and chopping board to guard them from starch thetans.

Place about 30g/quarter of an inch of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan at a low heat. While it's melting, grate a sad little carrot which, while not at all rotten, is about a day past its best. Put grated carrot into the bottom of a small casserole which holds about three pints.

To the melted butter, add about a dessert spoonful and a half of wholemeal flour. Reflect on the sadness that leads to using wholemeal flour and thus turns white sauces beige. Leave to cook for a surprsingly long time on a low heat, to rid roux of all possible traces of flouriness (probably thetan-attracting).

Take God's gift to brocolli, which is emerald green and splendid and has been lording it over the sad carrot for the last day or so. Chop off a few florets and then finely chop until it's all little tiny green bits, because who wants to bite into a fish pie and get a soggy mouthful of brocolli? I like brocolli, but it has to know its place. Add to casserole with carrot. There should be about equal volumes of green bits and orange bits. Add same quantity of sweetcorn as there is of carrot and stir. Reassure delicate little vegetables that no one is going to pour tinned soup over them.

Stir roux, which is beginning to smell agreeably bicuitlike. Become alarmed at spitting noises from oven, and scared that the fish is going to be all scorched and dead. Pull out and examine. Discover it needs about another five minutes. Glance at timer, which has another five minutes to run. Feel smug.
Put fish back in oven, then stir roux harshly and add about half a cup from half a litre/just under a pint of semi-skimmed milk. Whisk very thoroughly and quickly add more before it turns into actual pastry and causes lumps. Whisking makes white (or beige) sauce feel loved. Once you've added enough to leave the end result looking like thin cream, if thin cream was beige and had bits of bran in it, turn up the heat just a little. Whisk very thoroughly one more time as a gesture of love, then leave it to do other things.

(At this point, if I had trouble standing, I would pour the sauce into a glass bowl and nuke it for a minute or two at a time until it had thickened to my satisfaction).

Turn oven off with two minutes left to go. Turn potatoes down and turn them over. Stir white (or beige) sauce. Chop a small onion finely, then eye vegetables and seemingly huge pile of onion. Add about half the onion to the mix and mutter about waste while discarding other half. Remove fish from oven and flake it into the veg. Be agreeably surprised at the pleasant, entirely foodlike smell which comes up. Stir sauce.

Turn potatoes off, empty into colander, then empty colander back into pan. Wash colander immediately to rid it of starch thetans. Go back to sauce, which can take just about anything except lack of attention. Whisk again to tell it you love it and then shake in dried or fresh parsley until the smell changes from a biscuity smell to a wonderful, only slightly herby parsley sauce smell. Adjust until the smell of the sauce seems like it would go well with the veg and fish mix. Add sauce to mix and discover that of course there's too much, but not by that much. Stir what is now finished pie mix and put to one side.

Mash potatoes, adding a pinch or two of nutmeg. You want enough to give a certain something, but not nearly enough to actually be able to tell the something is nutmeg. Spoon potatoes onto pie. Smooth over with a fork, reliving childhood days in nursery school and leaving patterns. Put pie into oven at gas mark 4 and set timer for half an hour.

Clean up kitchen, feeling good about life. Turn to leave, only to discover potato pan which has been beset by starch thetans. Battle and destroy all thetans, then clean up resulting mess from counter tops. Retire to the computer, cuppa in hand. Discover an hour later the timer has failed to go off, that the pie is fine and that next time you'll put it in at gas mark 6.

Next time I will also add butter and cream or milk to the mash, since it's a little too plain without.

Migraine pain got a little thumpy, about sixish, and then got splatted with tramadol. It's now down to a barely annoying three and spiking five only when kids play football outside. The pain bothers me less than the thumping.

In which the Rodent has much less trouble getting around.

Suddenly I am fit to go out alone.

Yesterday I failed to get to Rochdale. I missed one train and was too tired out to get another, but the thing is, I looked the train times up myself. I can't articulate why this is so difficult for me when not on strong narcotics, but it is. Yesterday it was simple. This morning, it was simple and I finally got to go.

I didn't just go to Rochdale. I visited the vet there, went to a supermarket and bought everything I wanted to without getting lost or frustrated. I got a taxi to the station and was able to read the signs and make a judgement call as to which train to get home again, finding myself in Manchester Victoria. I did have a small time of being lost, but it resolved fairly quickly and I got myself to Platform 6. It is nice being able to read signs and have them mean something. It's nice to be on a journey and at all times be aware where I am going and why.

Not only did I do all this, but I also had a successful flute lesson. The notes aren't waving lazily around the lines any more, which is making note reading easier. I am still flailing, but that's my own muppetry acting. I can deal with it being muppetry. It just means I need more practice doing sight reading. Ugh.

After the flute lesson I wandered around Bolton town centre. There's a museum and aquarium. Previously, I have spent unfun hours, literally hours, tramping around unable to follow the maps and getting lost. This time it took me about two minutes to work out where it was. Still slow, but I walked straight from the map to the museum and got to see everything and talk about fish care and filters with the two knowledgeable men. One had an enthusiastic air of knowledge, the other had a mop. I ended up suspecting the chap with the mop was probably the senior person there.
I didn't bother with the fake Egyptian artefacts, saving them for another day, but I did get myself a Hall I' Th' Wood mug for £4.75.


No Tramadol (yet) today. Cocodamol at the point where a football being kicked around outside started driving me barmy and I realised I was in pain and probably more cocodamol very soon, but no Tramadol. Tramadol yesterday and Tramadol tomorrow because it's Wednesday and I will have people over. Pain is at about a 5. Annoying but bearable.

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.

In which the Rodent has its first visit to a pain clinic.

The ME yuk has faded into the background again. Migraines restrict me so much that I am never quite sure if the lack of fluey ache is because I am in remission, because the beta blockers are a miracle drug for my particular woes, or whether I end up accidentally staying at less than seventy percent of capability and thus don't trigger an ME crash. It's impossible to tell without about fifteen thousand similarly afflicted Rodents and a million pounds. Whatever it is, I am lboody grateful.

Today I finally managed to attend a pain clinic after missing the first appointment by turning up on the wrong day. This time it was the right day, although by the end of the two hour assessment I couldn't honestly have told you what day it was without looking at my calendar. The calendar is one of the few Flylady items, I've tried that actually works for me, and this is only after years of slowly adapting the system to my own needs. The main reason the calendar works is because there's no picture and so you end up with two A3 sized pieces of paper for every month.

What I have been told is that after taking no painkillers at all between July 17 2007 and November 17 2007, the headaches are not rebound and I can take whatever kills the pain while the pain clinic teaches me new methods to relax and cope. I'm all for the relaxation, since I think I need it. I don't need the added psychological barrier of being afraid to go out because it will hurt, and that is already beginning to happen. When I explained this, though, I got no feedback at all about whether this was something they did or not. It was very much a talking to blank walls exercise. I could have used their not carefully explaining that they don't offer miracles, since I am feeling crushed and hopeless enough as it is. I'm not expecting to be pain free, or drug free, but it would be nice to be in a better mental place. They kept asking me what I thought they could offer me, and I don't know what they can. Relaxation techniques, CBT, tea and biscuits, who knows? I felt horribly like I was sitting an oral exam I hadn't studied for.

I told them fairly honestly what I use to help the pain: two times 8/500 cocodamol two or three times a day, sometimes four, sometimes none. Tramadol if I need my wits about me for any length of time. Alcohol as an occasional alternative when I want to go out with friends (the Solstice was very boozy). Headbutting a wall during the really bad ones.
I forgot to mention super-sour sweets, cinnamon sweets and ice cream, all of which help the pain by giving me a few seconds respite/distraction.

I am thinking I need a non-junkie style way to explain to my migraine doc that when I was on thirty or so tramadol per month I was unhappy and unable to work but able to learn Spanish, travel to Spain, find my own accommodation and keep up my hobbies, while without them I am struggling with getting to the corner shop and back again. Either my brain has deteriorated very swiftly since 2007 and I am in serious trouble (and livejournal entries then and now suggest not), or my mental health has just become that bad for some reason (that's harder to ascertain), or strong pain relief really does help me get it together. I need to get that all out verbally without resorting at any point to screaming GIVE ME DRUGS!! because that won't help my case. Unfortunately, while I can type this out fairly calmly, once I'm talking to a doc I can hear the brain cells dribbling away until I am snivelling about wanting more tramadol because it makes me feel better....

It might even actually be better to be a drug-free zombie and not get habituated, although experience really, really says I need something. I really wanted a doc at the pain clinic I could talk this sort of thing over with, and I didn't get it. I'll be going to a GP I probably haven't seen before and asking for tramadol after a looooooooong gap without them, so I want to do it with backing. For this reason, I have an appointment to phone my doc at the London Migraine Clinic on Friday morning. I'll take her advice as regard tramadol. Cocodamol too, since, although it's available OTC, I still don't want to make things worse.

I am working on my own strategies for being unable to think all day. I do ten pieces of housework every day, or at least make a gesture in their direction, and mark them done (or not done) on a whiteboard. They're beginning to slowly be things I do without having to think about them. In particular, it's been natural now for months to wash up as I wait for the kettle to boil for my first cuppa, but it's now becoming second nature to also grab the no-taint kitchen spray and a square of Bounty cloth and wipe the kitchen surfaces and visible spots down. While I eat breakfast, the kitchen is spotless. This is so much not the case for the rest of the day. Wiping the bathroom and brushing the loo are also becoming less things I think about and more things I do naturally, and so those might also come off the list-of-ten-things. I can then add new things onto the list. At the current rate, with current levels of gaga, I could be fairly self sufficient and possibly working at something very simple in three to five years.

For depression, actually, not having to think what to do next is a huge bonus. It's been helping me deal with those February blues, stopping the vicious circle of lack of arsedness--->mess--->being overwhelmed--->depression--->lack of arsedness. If I get a huge relapse or merely hit my limit in the future, I will still try to keep my morning routine going just for the lack of stress it engenders.

Since feeding the cat and emptying her tray are on the list, Moth thinks it's a very good thing. She will come and get me if her cat tray is too full for her comfort, after spreading litter and poo about, so it's good for both of us if it's emptied regularly.

Pol and I had our usual Huge Row about the fact that he really wants to live in a caravan and I really can't cope with it even though the idea itself appeals. The last time we had this row, he threw me out just before I walked out, then he bought me coffee about a minute later and we got very vommish while addressing the very real concern I had over getting so little sleep each night. We left the caravan and moved to this house soon after. This time, we just sat and talked it through for a while, then went and watched the first episode of Stargate SG1 together. Like the fact that I want a dog, the fact that he likes living in a caravan is going to keep on and keep on coming up in the future, so I'll be looking for some way forward to that dream. Perhaps he'll start sleeping eight hours a night. Either that or I can live in a second caravan. One full of dogs. Smelly dogs.

In which the Rodent eats far too few vegetables.

I've been out yet again! The cold snap has gone. Pol and I walked in the rain down to the closer postbox. There was a tree next to it, covered in flowers and a road safety poster for some poor road victim. After that we went to the sandwich shop for bin lids. I had steak Canadien (mechanically recovered meat) with mushrooms and onions, and a cup of pea and ham soup. Three portions of veg for breakfast if you don't mind them being half the recommended size.

Pol told me the powers that be have upped the ante to seven fruit and veg a day. Given their recommended portion sizes (three whole sticks of celery or one dessert bowl of salad is one portion) does anyone actually eat that? A soup made from three sticks of celery, two carrots, a turnip, one bowl of cabbage, two cups of whole grain, two small onions and one and a half cups of mushrooms would feed me for two days, but add that to a bowl of shredded wheat and a glass of orange juice, and it's government recommended intake. Actually, I should try that one day, just to see if I can eat that much.

The walk hasn't hurt me at all and I've done my ten things as well. I hit the cocodamol heavily yesterday, since I had Claire over to play cards. Three doses in the day. Today migraines haven't bothered me until just now and it's 2pm and the pain has kicked in at a lowly four. I'll eat the lunch I cooked but forgot about and see if it helps before I take drugs today. I've finished watching Scrubs now, all the five series I own. It was great fun and now it's over.

In which the Rodent contemplates a sunset in the Pennines.

It's been another bright and sunny day. I've been out twice, once with sunglasses and once without. I ended up taking cocodamol twice today. The pain got all the way up to seven, and yet an hour later I feel pretty good. It spikes up to seven and then fades back to an ignorable three.

Yesterday we went out shopping. It wasn't so much of an ordeal as I remember it being. I found a nice picture for Anne. We went part of the way to Nottingham to deliver it, then Pol got tired and we turned back, just in time to spend a long time in a queue behind a very unpleasant smash on the M62. We could see all the lights clustered about half a mile away. We were in the Pennines and spent a while contemplating some stunning scenery in between being freezing. I had a migraine but no pills, but even through the sunglasses and pain it was very pretty indeed. The sun was lighting everything dark orange to the west, sending black shadows to the east, while frost painted the ground to the north of stands of trees.

It's been another bright and sunny day. I've been out twice, once with sunglasses and once without. I ended up taking cocodamol twice today. The pain got all the way up to seven, and yet an hour later I feel pretty good. It spikes up to seven and then fades back to an ignorable three.

Yesterday we went out shopping. It wasn't so much of an ordeal as I remember it being. I found a nice picture for Anne. We went part of the way to Nottingham to deliver it, then Pol got tired and we turned back, just in time to spend a long time in a queue behind a very unpleasant smash on the M62. We could see all the lights clustered about half a mile away. We were in the Pennines and spent a while contemplating some stunning scenery in between being freezing. I had a migraine but no pills, but even through the sunglasses and pain it was very pretty indeed.

In which the Rodent has a sinus headache that is NOT A MIGRAINE.

I've had daily migraines since June 2006. This is not news.

I've had a constant state of migraine, 24 hours a day, since July 2007, when I tried taking no painkillers for a few months. Again, this is not news.

I still have a headache now. The aspiring I took on top of the cocodamol have kicked in. I'd noticed a certain clarity of thinking. Signs like being able to go downstairs to put on hot water and coming upstairs having put the hot water on. Now, this is actually a major achievement for me.

What I did notice a few minutes ago was that all of my headache suddenly went up to the top of my head. This is where I'd expect sinus pain to manifest. It feels like sinus pain, in fact. The front of my face is burning and I have a lumpy weight pressing down from the top.

However. IT IS NOT A MIGRAINE. It's a headache, but it's not a migraine headache. For the first time in over six months I am free of migraine.

I have snorted salt water into my sinuses and been rewarded with green solid gunk and blood. Yummy.

In which the Rodent makes good and is rewarded by a nice room.

I know I seem to spend my time letting things fall where they may, letting the house achieve a state of squalor and then cleaning it all up again, but I am still very pleased with the last two days.

Yesterday was a lazy day. Since I have this routine and want to do things every day, I am careful, especially after a weekend like this has been, to take a day now and then to just be a lazy slob. That said, my slobbishness only came to the fore after I had looked after the cat, washed every dirty pot and tried (and failed) to bake a supply of oat and rice breakfast bars. I let them overcook and they became bricks, but the batch I took a little too early were very edible, so I know now to leave them in for less time and not to try to melt brown sugar onto the top without a blowtorch or risking a saucepan.

Today was making up for a lack of earlier attention to my room. I always know I have been neglecting my main haven when I am reluctant to put out my posh embroidered bedspread in case it gets smelly or dirty.
I dragged myself out of bed promising myself I would do my 'ten things' daily list. The list is: feed the cat, water her tray of grass, brush the floors downstairs, wipe the kitchen (with implicit washing up beforehand), wipe the bathroom down, brush the loo, check the cat tray (with implicit leaving it empty), check the kitchen bin (and empty if full, or just wipe if not), mark Not Known At This Address for post and putting it in the red bag and change the hand towel in the bathroom for a fresh one. I usually get 6 out of 10 even on a lazy day.

Today my aim was to do all ten before I let myself watch more Scrubs. Somehow, in addition, I've put laundry on to wash and dry, tidied away some camera pieces into a bag, tidied all the rubbish in my room, sorted out, decluttered and wiped the bathroom stand, cleaned the bathroom floor, made my bed from scratch (old bedding is in the dryer right now), played madly with Moth who it turns out likes to kill dressing gown cord (I think it incites carrier bags into uprisings or something), emptied the bathroom bin, put clean clothes away (washed and dried at the weekend) and put out a joss stick (downstairs) and the oil burner (my room).

I've yet to get washed and dressed or sort out dinner for tonight, so my room is getting attention but I am not. I can feel a major migraine building. I woke up headachey, but it got better, and this is my first major migraine of the day, at 3pm after an 8am start. The pain's only at a 4, making doing things a drag but not badly, but I want to try, just for once, to head it off at the pass. If I had less migraine, I would do a little piece of sewing, but I don't, so I won't. It's enough that my floor is clear and my room smells good.

In which the Rodent posts the letter of complaint and celebrates with suicidal leeks.

I went out and posted a letter of complaint after the unpleasantness with the court officer or whoever she was yesterday, with all the bells and whistles.

The weather's dry and quite warm. I did manage to get to the chemist to get a form for getting drugs delivered. I get so stressed out about trying to keep up with the beta blockers, if I can use this service, then I can keep regular with the drugs and also use my energy for other things. For example, I'd like to get Moth registered at a new vet, get my teeth seen to, various other things I've been putting off.

I had to fill in a form and the chemist was just closing for lunch, so I grabbed a sarnie at the local cafe - actually one of three local cafes! They lent me a pen, and I got the form done and posted, but it did leave me migrainous. Something about filling in forms sets them off and I think it's a combination of the leaning forward and the having to focus eyes and attention. The leaning forward problem would also explain why I can read a book in bed or in the bath but not when out of the house - being outside means sitting upright, which means looking down to read.

On then to the butcher, to get meat and veggies. I want to do veal burger on a bed of leeks and vichy carrots, which is just carrots split and cooked in slightly sugared water to give them a glaze. Courgettes, carrots, white turnips, some leeks which kept trying to commit suicide by leaping, so I got the butcher to decapitate them and save them the trouble. Mixed peppers, lemons, celery. A good sized leg of lamb for the weekend and some sausages. No sweet potatoes though. They seem to be out of season. The entire lot was £16 and it's basically enough food for most of a week.

While I was walking from the butcher, a piece of paper fell out of my pocket, but it didn't look like much and I thought it must be an old receipt, since I couldn't remember anything papery I had wanted to keep. Since I was sweating and trembling and it was small and not important, I let it go. It's only occurred to me now that it was probably the tracking number for the letter I sent. Bother. My brain just does not seem to connect things in real time - I am always working them out later on.

Back home, feeling sick enough to nearly lose the bacon and egg sarnie, and distinctly not enjoying life even a little, in fact completely miserable with pain, not even wanting to put the veg away. Putting veg into the drawer and seeing all the tempting ingredients usually makes me happy and full of recipe ideas. The complete lack of pleasure puts the pain at about a 7. I persuaded myself to take cocodamol, but I think I've missed my opportunity since my head is pounding merrily.

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 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 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 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 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.