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 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.