Update: COVID

 Remember when I said that we hadn't had COVID? 

Aah, good times.

This week we have both been hit HARD by the plague, and as a result have spent the last few days coughing, sneezing, groaning and (in my case) complaining that we can't taste or smell anything.

Fuck's sake.

I went into work on Monday, did a bit of useful stuff and then asked if it would be ok to go home early to finish a 700-page proof of Ordinary Monsters, which I wanted to return to the office before my last day on Thursday. Plus I felt a bit rubbish - sore throat, more of a cough than usual.

Tuesday morning I felt slightly worse, but well enough to read my book. But by about 3pm on Tuesday I felt AWFUL. Took a LFT and there was a veeeeeery faint second line.  Then came incredible chills and shivers, to the extent that I took to my bed before teatime, and did not emerge for another 14 hours.

Wednesday saw Mr WithaY announcing that he too now felt dreadful, and he took an LFT which popped up with a massive immediate POSITIVE result. Yay.  Interestingly, the phone app has told him to isolate for 6 days, but told me I had to isolate for 9. 

I did another lateral flow test on Thursday - couldn't have been more positive. Huge dark purple PLAGUE line flashed up immediately, none of this hanging about for 30 minutes nonsense.

Sent off for a PCR test, and had the result back in less than 24 hours, telling me that yes, I did indeed have COVID-19. 

Finally.  No more pandemic-FOMO for me.

So I missed my last day in the office, which made me very sad; it's been lovely working there, and I loved the team, as well as actively enjoying the work. Oh, and I won't be able to help out my lovely mate Jo with some cookery shenanigans next week. 

I know that compared to so many other people's terrible losses, that's very small beans, but I'm still disappointed. 

Today I left the house for the first time since last Monday (other than going out into the garden to look at the snow, the tulips, the pond or the stars) and went around the block with Mr WithaY and the dog. And, boyo, was I tired afterwards? Yes. Yes,  I was very tired.

Speaking of the pond, remember all the anti-heron precautions we took to stop any more of our beautiful Koi carp being stolen away by big flappy bastards?

We might as well have saved our money, time and effort, because whilst we succeeded in preventing the herons ravening through the group, we had not considered otters.

Fucking otters.

We realised that we hadn't seen much of the fish for a day or two, and went out to check on them. What we found was a scene of desolation and carnage - rocks and plants scattered, the underwater lights all knocked out of whack, and two sad little sets of crunched-up Koi scales on the lawn. And eyes.  Apparently otters leave the eyes.

No more fish for the WithaY pond, we decided. We're encouraging other sorts of wildlife to visit, as we already seem to have herons and otters. 

There was frogspawn last Spring, kindly donated from our next-door-neighbour's pond, which duly transformed into teeny frogs, all of which immediately buggered off into the long grass, never to be seen again. They probably headed straight back to their home pond next door. 

There have also been a few dragonflies, or possibly damsel flies. Water boatmen, snails and many types of bee, hoverfly and (bastard) wasps, all loving the waterfall. Oh, and the local pigeons have decided to use the pond as their preferred bathing spot - it is highly comical watching them flopping heavily into the water and having a good wash, before creaking up onto the nearby trees to dry off.

I'm hoping we've seen the last of the snow, as my tulips are flowering and I don't want them crushed by the weather.

I don't want any of us to be crushed by the weather.

In which I share sad news

Well, this is a post I really hoped I wouldn't have to write for many years.  My beloved, lovely, Mum died last month.  It was very sudden, and unexpected and a huge shock to us all.  She was only 70, which is (as people keep telling me) no age at all, but her health had become very poor in recent years. As you may remember, we all caught the flu when she was here at Christmas, and I don't think she recovered from that fully.

I'd been down to spend the day in Sussex with her, and we had a pleasant relaxing time together, I ferried her to a few medical appointments, we had tea, watched all the various afternoon TV shows she liked, then treated ourselves to an Indian takeaway for supper, before I headed home again in the late evening.

That night she became ill, called an ambulance and was admitted to the superb St Richard's hospital where they tried to find out what the problem was. I was worried she might have had a heart attack, but after a day or two of tests they said she had "an infection" later specified as cellulitis.  Mum had cellulitis several times, a complication of a longstanding diabetic ulcer on her foot, and despite it being a nasty thing, I was relieved as she'd been treated for it successfully before.

To cut a long and sad story short, despite getting the best possible care, she passed away a few days later, with her family around her.  It was peaceful, dignified, gentle, and she was in no distress, which is about as much as any of us can hope for I think.

We held the funeral on a gloriously sunny day in August, and many friends, family and members of her church attended to pay their respects. I will miss her more than I can say.

I take comfort from the thought that she is reunited with my Dad, who died so many years ago, and who she loved all her life.

Grief is a strange thing.  I have hours, and now even half-days, where I feel fine, almost as if I have forgotten what has happened, and then a wave crashes over me and I am inconsolable.  I know it will get easier, but my God, it's hard at the moment.

I was supposed to be down in Sussex this week to help my sisters sort out some of the paperwork, but as if by magic, I went down with a chest infection at the weekend, and have spent the last 48 hours in bed, coughing wretchedly.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I have avoided the Black Lung since I stopped working in London, and now it reappears.  Thankfully, it seems to be receding again within a week, unlike the 3-month visitations of yore, but it scared me badly.

Two positive things:

1)  Our holiday in Japan, which was booked a while ago, is now a shining beacon of "something to look forward to" even more than it already was.

2)  I joined a local spa/gym at a country hotel nearby a few days after I went down to visit my Mum and going swimming there has been very helpful.  I recently sold my Rickenbacker 12-string, so had some "extra" money in the bank, and used it to pay for a year's membership and I am so glad I did, as it means I have somewhere to go that has no associations with anything else in my life. It helps.

Glorious victory. And inglorious ailments.

Hello, happy 2015 etcetera etcetera etcetera.  To be fair, I have very little clue what day it is, never mind what year.  This is down to the usual Christmas/New Year bewilderment that happens every year, but also because this year, for a change, we all got really ill over the holidays.

I don't know why I refer to them as "the holidays," given that Mr WithaY and I no longer work a standard Monday to Friday pattern.  Every day we're not working could be described as a "holiday."

Anyhoo. We had all kinds of plans for Christmas, all sorts of parties and events we were planning on going to, or hosting.  Day trips, even.

Mr WithaY and I went to the Bath Christmas market, where we bought gee-gaws and trinkets and trumpery*.  These included:

• A wooden trivet made of slices of wood all set in some sort of resin, which looks like an arty photograph.  I love it.  

• Some beautifully soft grey and blue lambswool fingerless mittens which I wear almost constantly outside, 

• A stained glass Christmas tree decoration from a very young, very silent, Belarusian nun.  

• A wreath made from dried apples, oranges, cinnamon sticks and (I think) Scotch Bonnet chillies, which now hangs in the front porch.  

We shopped for food, we made sure there was Champagne for Christmas Day, we moved furniture to ensure the tree would fit in the sitting room.  The decorations went up, the house looked festive, we were ready.

Things started well with several members of the extended family arriving for the weekend before Christmas, much jollity and dog-walking, and a tremendous curry where we all sat at a great big long table and ate a vast selection of lovely food.  The remainder of the family arrived the next day and there was more hilarity, dog-walking, exchanging of gifts and a buffet.  We do like a buffet in our family.  Mostly because you can have three slices of ham if you want to, AND a sausage roll AND some celery AND a bit of cheese.

The majority of the family went to their respective homes again, leaving just Mr WithaY and I, and my lovely Mum here for the Christmas period.  The first few days were perfect. We went out a bit, drank lots of tea, ate lots of delicious home-made food, watched some Christmas TV, and looked forward to the Big Day.  I went to work on Christmas Eve, Mr WithaY and Mum stayed in and watched a DVD together.

By the time I finished work at 6pm, I was feeling very odd.  Dizzy. Hot and cold.  Headachy.  I got home, and the others were feeling much the same.  And that, dear readers, was that.  We all went down with the flu as if felled by hammers, and for the next three or four days hardly moved.

Mr WithaY and I, whilst feeling dreadful, were able to eat a little, and even make cups of tea and so on, but poor Mum just got worse and worse, to the point where she ended up staying with us for an extra week, and was then only taken home on New Years Day to go straight into hospital. Thankfully, after a week of top-notch care, she has returned home and seems to be much better. but it was a horrible time for all of us.

Mr WithaY and I have both been left with horrible racking coughs, and intermittent high temperatures, but we are both much better than we were.  I have no energy, and even walking the dog around the village, or pushing a shopping trolley round the supermarket leaves me shaking and exhausted, but hopefully in a few days that will pass too.

The good news is that I have lost a stone, for the first time ever over Christmas, and am definitely less podgy than I was.  A few days of eating normally will probably put paid to that, but it's nice to begin a New Year feeling like I am already on the right track.

 Other news:  Prior to the Great Flu Outbreak, I was the proud winner of this:

The Stonehenge volunteers had their Christmas party, and held a Great British Bake-Off competition, where people were invited to submit cakes for JUDGEMENT.


I made this, a coffee cake with home-made apricot jam in the middle, and butterscotch chocolate ganache icing. Mr WithaY added the Neolithic deer drawing:

And it won!  I assumed, when Mr WithaY came into the pub to tell me (I was at the work Christmas meal, so wasn't at the Stonehenge event, clashing dates, sadly) that there had only been one or two entries, and we'd all won a cup.

Oh, but no.  No.

There were apparently about 30 entries, and the judges did it all very seriously, tasting everything and making their decision very carefully.

AND I WON!

Hurrah!  Here's the glorious cup in situ, dominating the room:

I am hoping I get to keep it forever, rather than having to return it next year.   That reminds me, I must add it to our insurance.

So.  The flu.  A quiet and very worrying Christmas.  A lingering annoying cough.  No other news.

Here's a lovely picture of the dog that my Middle Sis took on one of our family walks.  I really, really like it.  It shows you exactly what a friendly, sweet-natured girl she is.  And the dog is nice too.

Here's to a good New Year, and that nobody gets the flu again.


Oh, and once again there was no Dinotopia on TV.  Outrageous.









*you have to talk like that in Bath. It's the LAW.

Running Free

An interesting few days, recently.  To summarise:

1)  Work.  I have submitted an application for early release from my job as part of the HUGE cuts to the public sector that the Government is implementing.  If my application is accepted, I will, on May 31st this year, leave Her Majesty's employ after twenty two and a half years, and be released back into the wild.   I am tremendously excited at the prospect. 

I joined the Department of Secrecy a few months after I graduated, having taken the Civil Service entrance exam the week after my finals, and then worked like a SLAVE for them for twenty years. Twenty.  Jesus. 

Two years ago, as regular longstanding readers will already know, I transferred to the Department of Less Secrecy and More Cement up in London, to see what working in a Whitehall job was like. 

I can report that it's busy, demanding, interesting and sometimes a bit scary.  Plus you see Ministers in the lifts, and there are some fab shops really close to the office.   

However, the last two years have, coincidentally, been crammed with some very bad stuff, including the (now-resolved) SSFH.  We also had Mr WithaY's horrible finger-lopping accident, several loved ones being very ill indeed, and me having the Black Lung on and off for what felt like the entire time. 

Dealing with all of that, as well as a 3 hour each-way commute to the office is proving to be just too much, and as a result my sick record for the last 2 years is appalling.  I honestly think the early mornings and hellish travelling will kill me, so it's time for a change.  This is the perfect opportunity.

Fingers crossed that I get gently coaxed out of the cage in May, and am set free to scamper into the woods, wagging my tail and sniffing at the warm Spring air.

I have no idea what I will do with my life when I stop being a corporate drone, by the way. 

Suggestions are welcome.

2)  Family.  Mother in law WithaY was here for a visit last weekend.  She had to go to a funeral, sadly, so was over from her chic pad in the South of France for a few days.  It was nice to see her, as we don't get to visit as often as we'd like.  She was bored after a few hours, and took to wandering into the kitchen while I was making dinner, demanding some ironing to do.  I ordered her back to the sofa with a cup of tea, but it was a close-run thing.  At one point I thought I might have to use a broom to shoo her away. 

Yesterday I went down to Sussex to visit my lovely Mum, and also saw Youngest Sis and the two younger nephews.  We all went out for a Chinese lunch, to the same place we went to for the big birthday celebration almost a year ago.  There was a flyer on the table advertising a forthcoming Chinese New Year evening there, which included a Lion Dance among the cabaret attractions.  It's not a very big restaurant.  I'd love to see how they manage it in the space available. 

3)  Birthday celebrations.  Yes, today is my birthday.  Again. 

Following the slight gift-giving hiccup on Christmas Day, Mr WithaY has gone to a lot of trouble to make today very special for me.  He told me yesterday evening that he had invited some of our friends over for "birthday tea" this afternoon.  I asked what I needed to bake.  I was told "You don't have to do anything.  It's all organised."  And it was.  He had bought the ingredients to make:

Smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches
Marmite and watercress sandwiches
Scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream
Hot buttered crumpets

But the piece de resistance was the cake.  A huge, chocolate, fuck-off, surprise birthday cake.

Look...

I was so impressed by this that I had to deploy my shiny cake stand for the scones.  Magnificent, no?

I also had a bunch of beautiful flowers that a friend* gave me last weekend, which had opened up for today.  Perfect timing.

And, hey, is that a CAKE there in the foreground?

The little house behind the flowers was a birthday gift from Mother in law WithaY.  It's a bumble bee house, and when the weather gets warmer I will find a sunny sheltered spot in the garden, put it out there, and hopefully attract bumble bees to nest in it.  She was puzzled when she found out that I was given an annual membership to the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust last year as a gift, but was keen to join in I think, hence the house. 

And tomorrow night I am visiting Middle Sister, who has hinted there may be baklava.  Wonder how things will go at the weigh-in this week.  Heh. 

Other news:  I met a nice elderly lady on the bus last week who was wearing a huge, gorgeous fur coat and hat.

Me:  That coat looks lovely and warm.

Nice elderly lady:  Yes.  I've been to a funeral down in Brighton all afternoon, and it was freezing cold, so it was the perfect thing to wear. 

Me:  I can imagine.  And it's such a lovely colour.  Do people ever comment on it?

Nice elderly lady:  Yes, I have had people tell me I shouldn't wear fur.  I tell them it's not real. 

Me:  Ha!  Do they believe you?

Nice elderly lady:  Well, it isn't real.  It's not WILD mink. 

She was a card. 

*Hello Sarah!



Review of the Year

January:

The addition of fish to our Christmas-present-to-ourselves aquarium.  Glad to be able to report that we have only lost a very few over the intervening 12 months, and the ones who are still there look happy.  Well, as happy as fish ever do.  They've grown, and their colours are bright.  And I think one of them was smiling at me.

Snow.  Lots of snow.  Inability to get to work, which started off as fun and exciting, and rapidly became irritating and constraining.  No snow animals, though.  Fail.

Chest infection.  Yes, another bout of the Black Lung. 

Ongoing SSFH fuckwittery from the police, proving that basic administration CAN be impossibly hard if you really work at it. 

Sausage making. Oh yes.  Oh yes indeed.  Watch and be impressed, dear readers.  The hands belong to our friend the chef, the splendid camera work was down to me.  I didn't realise my camera recorded sound. Until I filmed that. 

February:

More fuckwittery from the police.  I suspect that I could say that every month, to be honest.

My blog was stalked by a mad optician for a bit, they added semi-literate comments to the same post over and over. Fool. 

Big, long, fantastic holiday to the US of A was booked, which cheered us both up after the horrible year we had just had.

Joined Slimming World, after deciding that I really couldn't pretend that I was fine as I was any more.  That was a surprisingly hard thing to do, it felt like an admission of defeat and failure somehow.  And now, 10 months on, two and a half stone lighter so far, I realise what a fucking idiot I was for not doing it years ago. 

March:

I had my hair cut at a posh hairdresser in Salisbury.  And it was great.  I will continue with that for the forseeable future I think.   Well, at least for as long as I have a job and can afford it. 

There was a lot of whining about trains.  Again, I expect that is true for every month. 

Minor domestic appliance chaos, and a huge crack in Mr WithaY's Landrover windscreen made it an expensive month. 

April: 

April was ALL ABOUT the visas.  Following the SSFH, we discovered that we now need visas to travel to the USA, so we had weeks of incredibly stressful and depressing paperwork and expense.  It all came right in the end, but I can honestly say that if we hadn't already booked the flights and hotel we would not have bothered. 

Mr WithaY went off to Wales for a fortnight to help run the outdoor activity stuff with work.  I don't remember any major domestic appliances breaking while he was away, for a change. 

There was also a degree of ranting about fuckwits on trains.

May:

May saw the continuation of the Black Lung, which had stuck around on and off for about 5 months.  Nice.

The weather improved and we did work on the garden. 

Poor brother in law was taken ill, which was very frightening, but thankfully he is making good progress now. 

Father in law was also taken very ill, rushed into hospital several times, all very upsetting.  Oh, and the nursing home staff dropped him on his head, which didn't help matters.  He is still with us, though, battling on and watching murder mysteries with glee. 

Holiday preparation continued, having the visas meant that we actually started looking forward to it.

June:

We went to AMERICA.  Hurrah!  I can't believe it was 6 months ago. 

We also had the house insulated - been much warmer this winter, so that was worth doing - and did lots to the garden. 

Oh, and I got chatted up by the man who works at the rubbish tip.  Bonus.

July:

AMERICA AMERICA AMERICA.  We were over there for a month, it was marvellous.  Best holiday ever.

I fell over in Nantucket like an idiot and fractured my ankle, not realising I had done so for about 3 weeks.  Gah.  Well, a bad sprain looks like a fracture, and vice versa, apparently.

The weather had been boiling hot the whole time we were away, we returned home and the rain started.  Ah well.

August:

I started my new job, still in London, still in the same department, but in a different team and with a different role.  Still enjoying that.  Good chance that I will be made redundant though, next year.  And to be honest, that would mean that I wouldn't have to spend 6 hours a day travelling, and would probably pay off most of the mortgage, so hey, not all bad.

Had the plumber in to do some minor work on the bathroom.  Ended up with huge holes smashed in the walls and a craving for whiskey.  Looks ok now.

September:

September is all about the Frome Cheese Show.  I am already looking forward to the next one.

We persuaded father in law WithaY to sell his house, and spent many weekends travelling to Dorset to clear his stuff out and take photos for the estate agents.  It's still on the market.  Anyone with £300K to spare, drop me a line.

October:

Had a mini holiday in St Ives with some mates, the weather was lovely, the sea was blue, we saw a seal, Mr WithaY fell over backwards into a stream. Oh, and there were cream teas.  Perfect.

Went to see our MP to try to resolve the ever-present SSFH aftermath. 

I lost my blogging mojo for a bit, but not to worry, it came back.  Like Lassie. 

November:

Rained.

Return of the Black Lung.   4 weeks off work, antibiotics, chest x-rays blah blah fucking blah.  Again.

Also, visit from two senior police officers to discuss the rather excellent letter which our MP wrote to the Chief Constable.  Had almost 2 hours with them, explained exactly how their actions had affected us, and how incredibly fortunate we are to have a close group of friends and neighbours who looked after us when the SSFH broke over our heads, and basically made sure we didn't do anything stupid at a time when we felt as though we might. 

Police apologised profusely and heartily. Police also said they would pay us a small token amount - NOT compensation, that would imply fault - but as a recognition of what we had suffered as a result of their "poor decision."  We agreed that we would let the matter rest.  We are waiting for a cheque. 

Feel as though a line has been drawn under that now, which is a huge relief.

December:

Snow snow snow.  Frost and fog as well.  Very seasonal.

Catastrophe in the kitchen with a shelf collapse, and about £500 of china and glass smashed all over the floor.  Waiting for a letter from the insurance company.  Gah.

New curtains though.


SSFH:

So, yeah.  We were arrested last summer.  The police turned up at our house at 0630 with a warrant and a battering ram (thankfully not used) and arrested us both on very serious, very nasty allegations.  We were held in the cells for 10 hours, photographed, fingerprinted, questioned under caution and finally released on bail.  Our home was searched, a lot of our property was confiscated for examination, and we both felt as though our world had come to an end. 

A week later we were told that the police would be taking no further action, and all our property was returned.  I was off work for over a month with post traumatic stress, we were both very badly affected, and without the love and support of our friends and neighbours, I really don't know that we would both still be here. 

We've spent a lot of time over the last 18 months trying to get an explanation as to how this could have happened, and why, and who was responsible for the original malicious and unfounded allegations.  We'll never know, as it turns out the police didn't know either.  But they decided to act anyway.  As they said to us last month: "It was not our finest hour."  No, it really fucking wasn't.

As a result of that, we now have to get a visa to travel to the USA.  We have managed to get our DNA, photographs and fingerprints deleted from the central police database, and we have had an apology from the Chief Constable. 

It should never have happened. 

And the saddest thing, to me at least, is that we no longer trust the police. 

But, at least we now have closure, to use a dreadful pseudo-psycholgical term.  And as a result, next year will be a good one.

Thank you to all our friends, neighbours and family who got us through what was undoubtedly the worst few months of our lives.  Onwards and upwards.

Hurrah.

Happy New Year, everyone.  Thank you for reading, commenting and hopefully enjoying spending virtual time with me.  Looking forward to the next chapter.

Crystallised

Well, here we are, a mere two weeks from Christmas.  Are we all ready for it, dear readers?  Have we got the mulled wine on a low simmer, the Christmas pudding clamped into the workbench ready to be chiselled into, the turkey nervously fingering its collar out in the garden? 

Me neither.

Although, to be fair, Mr WithaY and I have already made more festive effort than we did over the entire holiday season last year.  We have written and posted our cards, bought a Lidl pannetone, discussed what we want for Christmas lunch - we're hovering on "duck" at the moment, but it may well change - and we plan to put the tree up this weekend.

Last Christmas we did almost none of that.  No tree, as we weren't in the mood to put it up, very few cards and a festive season spent mostly sniffling and coughing at each other.  The aftermath of the SSFH* went on for a very long time, but now we both feel in the appropriate frame of mind to celebrate stuff again.  So that's nice.

All it needs this year is the annual Dinotopia-fest and I will feel as though we are back to normal.

Anyway.  Hasn't it been cold?  I'm well aware that we soft south-western pansies get very little in the way of severe weather compared to those in the frozen wastes up North, but what we do get we make the most of.   We had about a week with real snow on the ground, which was very pretty, and then another week or so of ice on top of that, turning the roads into glass.  GLASS.

Last Sunday, we thought we might pop over to Salisbury, as I was getting stir crazy from a month of housebound coughing due to the ongoing boring chest infection.  The sun was shining, and the snow was melting, and the roads looked fine.  Traffic was moving normally on the main road past the house. 

Mr WithaY's Landrover has been in fine fettle**, so we hopped in and headed off.  As you drive out of our village on the non-main road, there is a sharp bend before you get to the junction with the slightly bigger road.  We went into that bend doing about 20mph, maybe less.  We started to turn the corner, then we lost it and went sideways on a sheet of black ice, sliding gracefully towards the wall. 

Fortunately, there was nothing coming in the opposite direction, and we came to a halt before we hit anything, but it was quite unsettling.  We reached the junction, made an executive decision and turned in the opposite direction to Salisbury, opting instead to pay a visit to father in law WithaY at the nursing home. 

Our trip to the local hospital was less slidey, but it was still pretty cold and icy out there.  I'm glad that they keep X-ray departments so warm.  Having to strip down into a saucy open-backed hospital gown for a chest X-ray would have been miserable otherwise.  I get the results next week sometime, something nice to look forward to. 

The doctor referred me for an X-ray because he was a bit concerned that this is the fourth significant chest infection in two years.  He asked me lots of questions about foreign travel.  Had I been anywhere exotic recently?  Did I do much air travel?  Do I have any close friends who have come back from the Far East lately? 

Other than the flights to and from Boston this summer, I haven't been on a plane for ages.  None of my friends have been anywhere exotic as far as I know.  The closest thing to foreign travel is the bus from Waterloo to the office, which sounds like a lively debate at the UN most mornings, I suppose.

Apparently it's my lower right lung that was "rattling" - the same one that was badly infected last time, so I have a feeling it never went away properly.  Anyone would think I smoked 60 a day.  I have NEVER smoked.  Ever.  Gah.

So anyway.  As my car died, and the roads were too icy anyway, I went for a short stroll the other morning.  I took my camera, because the hoar frost was incredible.  I wore the hat with ear flaps, in case you were wondering.

It was bloody freezing though, so I didn't go very far before realising I couldn't feel my fingers.

How Christmassy is this, eh?  Very, that's how.

I saw some herons and egrets in the river, but by the time my frozen sausage fingers got my camera out, they had buggered off.

Look, there he goes, buggering off.

Brrr.

Now I need a cup of tea.  And possibly a crumpet.  With butter and jam.

Which reminds me, the ongoing weight loss has stalled a little, probably due to 4 weeks of chest infection and 2 courses of antibiotics.  And shitloads of crumpets.

The last lot of antibiotics I was on apparently cause "spontaneous tendon rupture" so I am still half expecting my arms and legs to fall off. 
 
I'll let you know.







*Shit storm from Hades.  Yes, I am stilll going on about it.

**Unlike my car which died after three days of the cold, and had to have its battery recharged.  I know how it felt, to be honest

Covers

Welcome to the inside of my head.

Today it has mostly been full of the echoing sounds of lung-searing coughs and whining. 

There has also been a bit of guitar music as I tried to master the intro to "Weather With You*" and gave up, moving onto the far simpler and more satisfying chord sequences of  "Nothing Else Matters**" segueing (sp?) into "Rocking in the Free World***" and "Your Decision****" by way of light relief. 

The day started early, when I woke up, coughed a bit, then gradually slid into the full heaving paroxym, ending with streaming eyes and panicked racing heartbeat, imagining I was about to die.  I didn't.  I expect you worked that out.

Mr WithaY went and made me a cup of fresh ginger, hot lemon and honey, which was great until you got to the last inch or so, which was startlingly fibrous.  Next time, I think we will deploy a sieve.  The reaminder of my morning was spent in bed, wheezing and watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine on tv, wearing what was effectively a bed jacket.  Ok, it was a really little cardigan/shrug thing, but by wearing it over my nightie I think it turned into a bed jacket. 

I was WORKING it, baby.  Working it like an OLD LADY.

Tomorrow is a bit of a big day.  We have a visit from Her Majesty's Finest***** to discuss the ongoing repercussions of the SSFH******, so there's a fairly high stress level chez WithaY today.   Once it's all sorted out, if it ever is, I think I will write a book about it all.  With a gritty dreary black and white photo on the front cover, and some quotes from Serious People saying how enthralling it is.

Once you get the cover sorted, the rest is easy. I expect.


People do judge a book by it, they say.  Need to get it right. 



*Crowded House
**Metallica
***Neil Young
****Alice in Chains.  The timing on that is a bugger, and as soon as I start to sing it, I lose the ability to play the chords.  Not that I was singing today, mind.
*****Ha.
******Shit Storm From Hades