Wow. What a long time to have passed without bloggage, eh? About time I sat down, pulled up my chair, unplugged the phone and got down to some serious typing/writing/verbal diarrhoea.
Much has happened in the last week, but I've got a longer time to cover so I'll try and recreate as best I can.
My manky lip eventually cleared itself up owing to liberal application of Bonjela and witch hazel. Miraculous stuff, witch hazel, I can recommend it for most of your skin/spot applications. Well, it works for me at any rate. Maybe it's just my super-powered immune system or something....though that is a lie, because somehow I've managed to get another cold sore on my lip, a little bit further over to the left. Noice. More bonjela and squirming, since it's a particularly icky sort of pain that you get on application. And I'll be damned if I go onto Zovirax just yet.
Pretty tame weekend had at the end/beginning of the month, remembered to pay the council tax just in time so that they dont come shouting at me for the money. Delightful to have a conservative council, eh? Surrey may be very pretty but I feel sometimes like it's one of those villages where any deviation is ruthlessly supressed in sinister ways whilst maintaining some olde englyshe charm on the surface. I'm sure it isnt really.....mostly because I've not seen
Simon Pegg running up the road in a natty police uniform, I never have any original ideas! At any rate, I get to have my little bit of a say in the local administration next week, there being council elections. I think it might be a fiercely contested thing, because I've had no end of flyers, and I dont remember there being half as many when living in Soton, and I dont remember a single one in Leeds....maybe it's because I'm now a sole occupant I actually have to throw them out myself rather than piling them on a table until someone flings them with the rottin detritus at the bottom of the fridge.
At any rate, there is clearly a lack of Labour presence round here, no flyers at all. I've had a door-knock from the Lib Dems and several from the Cons. Now the Con ones are clearly highly funded, very glossy like fashion-mag paper. Big objection there; that kind of paper is more costly and damaging to produce, and does not recycle very well. So much for the Conservative commitment to the environment; I believe that it has been quite subsidised since my local MP is a Con.......in any case, such leaflets look more like junk mail, and I wouldnt be surprised if many people have just swept them straight into the rubbish!
Continuing with the political theme, I was reading the newspaper today, the Times. Now this is a very old, highly respected newspaper, but I have to say that even withing my lifetime standards have dropped. It is more full of advertising than typescript than ever before! I appreciate that publications require some form of income, but the Times appears to have whored itself more blatantly than any other broadsheet (if broadsheets can be said to exist any more). This is, however, not my gripe. Reading through one of the pull-out parts, I was trogging through one article with a niggling trouble that the author was familiar in a way not journalisic. Turns out, said article was written by my local MP, penning a lifestyle column.
Anyone spot the glaring problem with that? If this is my local MP, why is he writing a (quite supercilious) lifestyle column instead of representing my interests within local, national and international matters? Surely there is plenty, for godssakes
plenty of governmental stuff to be doing without him having time to write a lifestyle column. When does he have the time to lead this miraculous, nay, quite repugnant lifestyle? Political commentary from MPs seems most good and proper. Ethical, social commentary, yes. Even cultural. But to bang out a piece about his arguments with the wife over bloody wallpaper? No wonder most people have little respect for the current system of government; Whitehall farces aside, if MPs are devoting their time to bleating about inconsequentials......grrrrrrr.........
I would have to agree that this only gets my gander up so much because he's my representative. Had it been the MP for Constituencyville North I'd probably b e less annoyed, but still. It's a reet mockery.
Further news. I have an enormous mountain of rubbish to clean up at work, with a polite request from the lab head. It does need doing, I've been putting it off for far long but for some reason it is much more preferable to continue doing work rather than tidying old crap. Cooking works in the same way, but at least at this stage no-one is eating my chemicals that I produce.....and if they are, they are nice and pure and have been completely
recrystallised to a high degree of purity *coughs and splutters*. Good job I'm not a chef, really!
Quite a few people I know are know in parts antipodean, so just wanted to note a quick hello to all, if they're reading! You know who you all are....take care y'all......
And now for the big news *fanfares* ......
Once again I find myself a pedestrian, bikeless, an idiot in tight leather pants with no vehicle. I've been involved in a little road incident and the bike, though not totally destroyed, not a write off and probably still working, is currently out-of-action. Let us begin at the beginning.....
Last Thursday morning I get up and toddle around getting ready for work as usual, warm up the engine and hop out as per norm in the slight rain and the wet. Zoom along the same route as per usual, along the A30 until I reach the junction
here, sat behind some Honda or other. Now the A30 at this point is quite a wide road and there is space in the middle for cars waiting to turn right to sit and wait, and a large cross-hatched area surrounding. The A30 is busy during rush hour and queues build up on the side roads. Plenty of drivers emerging from the side roads seem to find it quite alright to pull halfway across and sit waiting in the cross-hatches till they can join the flow of traffic, despite this being strongly contraindicated by the highway code, if not entirely illegal; quite rightly, because if a car is sat in the middle of the road, you don't know what it is going to do, eh?
Someone did exactly this, emerged from the side road at quite a rate (avoiding the traffic coming towards me) to take up a position in the cross-hatches. This is quite close in front of the Honda, so that guy pulls up very short in front of me. Now, ordinarily when that happens, I'm in a position to avoid my performing an overtaking manoever, or at least gain a lot of extra space in which to brake by moving out somewhat. In this case, no can do since there's a car parked on the central cross-hatches. So I'm squeezing my brakes very hard, slow down considerably but still just catch the rear of the Honda and end up sprawled across the road watching my bike scraping along to a stop.
Now, first let me clarify my state of health. I'm in fine fettle now (five days later) with an interesting collection of bruises including ones that seem to have appeared without my noticing. I seem to have landed mostly on my right forearm and chin, and with the protective padding at my elbow and, of course, my helmet, a lot of the shock was absorbed. I do in fact have a very nice scrape up my helmet to include the visor - it's now a rather large table ornament, since one ding means replace! - so I really dont understand these guys and girls who wear open-face helmets. Had I had one one, I'd probably now have no chin. Wear the proper safety gear,
bloggardes, for whatever job you are doing! All this means that most of the impact was felt through my (unpadded) wrist, which was very painful, very quickly.
Having leapt up almost immediately, I went to pick up the bike and thought better of it when my wrist screamed at me! So I just headed off to the pavement to talk to the people in cars pulled up and talking, and the very helpful young lady who was a witness type person. Ambulance was duly called, police duly called and I got slinged up, offered gas/air combination [duly refused (:-) ] and taken away to A&E. Nice ambulance people nipped around the corner to work to let them know I wouldnt be in - most useful since I still dont have the number written down - nice policeman let me know what was happening and arranged removal of bike to storage (this will be costing me a lot) and came to talk to me later....and I was whipped away to hospital.
Hospitals seem the same the world over, much waiting going on. In fact, I'd say there is more waiting taking place than action; waiting for diagnosis, tests, to see what happens, to get better......at any rate, the nice nurse on
triage duty quickly got me some hefty
painkillers to ease it for a bit, till I went in to see the doc. This was quite a shocking experience; I'm sure that he proceeded in the correct manner, but he grabbed my arm rather heftily and began pressing to feel if there was a break! Most surprising. I was in fact in a lot of pain, since the initial adrenalin rush had worn off and my nerves were still screaming 15-12. At any rate, they scuttled me in for X-ray with a very friendly radiologist, and I was quickly diagnosed as having no break, just likely to have severe bruising and sent home with instructions to dose up on painkillers and keep rested. This I duly did, with a £20-odd taxi fare home - wondered at the time if I could have asked the nice paramedics to take me to the hospital closer to home! - and then a day of qite immense pain as the swelling began and stiffening that goes with it.
Right-hand being damaged, there was not a lot I could do without causing myself pain. I now can more appreciate frustrations accorded by the loss of one limb, since even simple tasks became too painful to contemplate with my arm, which I needed to keep suspended in the sling as it was too painful to keep aloft by my own muscle power. No chopping or stirring, hence unable to really cook for myself - the one time a microwave would have been an absolute necessity. Couldnt write or solve puzzles in that matter, since holding the paper still to write very badly with my left was out of the question. So I ended up watching endless Futurama on DVD and counting the seconds till I could take more Paracetemol. A horrible night of discomfort was then spent.
Now, this next paragraph will present a thought which my more tender
bloggardes may find disgusting, so I invite you to skip ahead now. With the theme of not being able to do anything with one hand, and my dominant hand......well, how the hell was I supposed to wipe my own arse? No question of doing it with my right hand, so it had to be my left, and you've no idea how cumbersome this turned out to be! Coupled with the suspended limb in a sling, it was a job and a half. Not something I'd care to repeat.
Friday I went and bought some much stronger painkillers which have sorted me very nicely and headed down for some tender care from my beloved P. Well, for some care and being called spasmoidal. He's nice in his own way (:-) I'd been planning to head down at the weekend anyways, since mister man had his birthday this Monday, but was seeming to be less fun with the prospect of days of tablets and pain. Despite what you may conjecture, I finding swallowing things a bit of a chore. But the weekend has been rather nice and relaxing, and I'm always glad to spend time with the man.
Managed a trip to the cinema to see the Golden Compass - why they had to rename it I've no idea, the book is called Northern Lights - which was most enjoyable. Much speculation to be had about
daemons, yours and other people's. For my unaware readers, an important note is that in the world of the story, human souls are not coextensive with the human body, and actually take their own form, that of an animal, and accompany the usual human form. Odd to think of Nicole Kidman being the embodiment of a ginger monkey, but there you are. So much speculation can be made about my, your, random famous person's
daemon.
Trip to Eastbourne was also made, for the delightful ride in the mid-afternoon with an alcoholic on the bus. Also a crazy old lady who was rather fixated on open/closed windows. If there wasnt so much already written in this posting, I'd detail more, but I need to get on with my evening! I may write more tomorrow, but no doubt there will be much work junk to update then.
Anyhoo, I'm home again in my pit that badly needs cleaning (since I was going to do some this past weekend before going to P), without a bike and likely to be forking out for the removal and return of it, and even more likely having it taken to the breakers and buying a new (second-hand) one, I'm feeling quite poor. Christmas will be a slow and easy one this year.
Please leave commentary, and I'll be blogging more often in the coming days!
