brrrr

I’m simply unable to get warm this evening! It’s not tiredness – I didn’t wake until nearly 10, and had a long nap between 3 and 5.30, but I still feel dreadfully cold. My temperature is normal (36.8), and so is pulse, though blood pressure a little high at 139/80.

I’ve eaten ( a hot quiche, with salad), and had the fan heater on. Even at a room temperature of 24C, I’m cold!  I’m hoping that it’s not the start of some kind of lurgy, but just a reaction to the busy and stressful polling day on Thursday and the count on Friday. Whatever, after I’ve had the second half of supper (strawberries with clotted cream), I think a prolonged soak in a hot bath followed by an early night is called for.

unexpected delivery

I’m not used to the doorbell ringing for a delivery on a Sunday – especially Easter Sunday! It proved to be a magnificent bouquet of flowers, from my nibling, for my birthday tomorrow. They explain “I chose this bunch because it’s a selection of all the stems which didn’t quite fit in other bouquets … something I’m sure we can both empathise with!”

shattered

After an emotionally-exhausting Saturday (a family gathering to commit my mother’s ashes to the River Evenlode) and physically demanding Sunday doing the last bits around her house before putting it on sale, followed by the dreaded train-with-backbreaking-seats trip home, I was in no fit state to do anything.

So, the first time I’ve ever had a Macca delivered ! Not even a posh burger from the Burger shop, just whatever looked quick, though I did at least have home-grown lettuce on the side. A prolonged soak in a hot bath and an early night seem called for.

five years on …

Five years ago today, I was pre-diabetic, one point short of being formally diagnosed diabetic, and started the NHS “diabetes prevention” course. My weight was 74 kg … during my active working life it had been steady on 55kg.

Thanks to a bit more exercise, and a re-think of my diet, I’m consistently no longer pre-diabetic. This morning, the scales showed 67.0 kg, against my target of 66kg (it was 68+ earlier this year, when I wasn’t able to be active). Average daily steps so far this year is 4064, which is down on last year, up on previous years, and hits my target of 4,000 during the “dark months” of GMT before we get to Summer Time – being a bit disabled, “ten thousand” is beyond me, but anything over two thousand has a positive health effect.

New this year are targets for meat-free days, and so far I’ve hit two veggie and one fish day a week as planned (2.0 veg, 1.2 fish). I do find a bit of a tension between “meat free” and avoiding ultra-processed foods, which is made worse by my Asperger’s causing avoidance of some tastes, textures, and the mixed-up salady things that seem to feature heavily in many veggie recipe collections. At heart, I’m very much a “protein plus three veg” person.

running to get caught up

A very slow recovery from the ‘flu that I had at the end of January had put me massively behind where I’d hoped to be, and it’s taken a lot of effort to get caught up! However, a whole bunch of books are now sorted and in crates, and space has been cleared for the first delivery of “stuff” from my Mum’s house, which will happen on Saturday.

Then sorting stuff for immediate use, and book crates and the rest of it to go into storage … hopefully, end of next week. Followed by sorting stuff into a heap for a major and overdue rubbish collection. To be eventually followed by a recycling centre trip with waste electronics and electricals (I’ve stacked up a fair bit in the nearly 14 years I’ve been in Worcester, especially as I usually buy second-hand so it doesn’t have a particularly long life). And then probably another trip to put more stuff into storage … looking at having it all sorted by Easter, which is when we plan to put my Mum’s house on the market. Only 9 weeks away …

Scary, scary, scary!

I was shivering really badly last night, and felt really sweaty after a difficult day. So I decided to have a warm bath. A twenty-minute soak did the job. However, I discovered that I was unable to get up out of the bath! My arms were just not working well enough to get me up, though there are plenty of grab bars to help. That was very frightening! OK, I always have the phone and fall alarm within arms reach, but really did not relish having to call for assistance …

Eventually, I decided to let the water out of the bath and try again. So, slightly chilly as the water ran away slowly, and then at the third attempt I did manage to get upright. But very wobbly stepping out of he bath, holding on to anything available. I didn’t even think about bending over to dry myself! Large bath towel on top of the bed, lay down, and was instantly asleep.

‘flu

Despite flu jabs at the end of last year, I seem to have gone down with it. Shivering with cold in a room temperature of 23C, and an hour later the stove has died down, the room is 20.5C, and I’m sweating and taking my jumper off! Aches all over, of course, and unable to stay awake for more than two or three hours at a time. Self-imposed quarantine seems in order (as does large quantities of blackcurrant lemsip, and handfuls of grapes).

fatness

EEEK !
In the last couple of months of 2024 I put on a lot of weight – around 4 Kg. I’m now trying hard to get back to the target weight (65Kg) that I agreed with the pre-diabetic nurse some 4 years ago. In the last week I’ve shed about 3/4 of a kilo, but it’s hard going, as cold weather makes me want thick soups, warming stews with dumplings, suet puddings and suchlike, which are clearly currently out of bounds.

catch-up

I went over to Oak Cottage on 21st December for a pre-Christmas visit, the first time I’ve managed to go there for about nine years. I really couldn’t face travelling via London, partly because the Worcester-Paddington Hitachi trains are desperately uncomfortable on my back, and partly because I didn’t feel capable of doing the Underground in the pre-Christmas weekend rush. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for such autistic things to become more intense, or more allowed, in the period following diagnosis. Anyway, I went via Birmingham and Cambridge, being collected by Sim from Ispwich station.

It was a very pleasant stay. I’d been a bit worried that Charlie – the most recent puppy, who is very nervous and defensive – would be a problem, but he seemed to remember me from Green Mount and settled down OK after the first ten minutes or so. Anne was, as I’d gathered, beginning to lose the plot a little, but we had several good long chats of reminiscences and it all went fine. A couple of good long chats to Sim – about Green Mount and suchlike. Phoebe drove me back to Ipswich on Mon 23rd, and we pent nearly all the journey talking about autism stuff, in a very useful, enlightening, and productive way.

The journey back, by the same route, was fairly vile, and not improved by a rail replacement double-decker bus from Coleshill to New Street. I got home about 9pm.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were largely quiet recovery days. A brace of partridge for Christmas dinner, as I’d been unable to get a pheasant – probably the first time I’ve had partridge for over 50 years. Soup from the carcasses subsequently, of course, and I’ve frozen some as well.

Despite my best intentions, I did end up making a start on printing Green Party newsletters on Boxing Day. On 28th I sent a list of “state of play” to Alex Mace, for him to chase up the outstanding artwork, all of which (except Warndon) duly arrived by New Year’s Eve. I did manage to finish all outstanding newsletters by lunchtime, so some 26,000 in the last fortnight, each one through the duplicator twice and the folding machine once.

I noticed that the winter-flowering clematis has started to open – nearly the latest I’ve ever known it (last year was 4th November – it’s an extremely variable plant!). Weather this morning was vile, so I didn’t manage to get out to cut my traditional New Year forsythia until it cleared up around lunchtime. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for a couple of days, needing a lot of sleep, and aching not only in the usual wrists and ankles, but in my upper arms and thighs. It’s an odd feeling, almost as if there are large bruises, but there’s no sign of any discolouration. I’ll take things fairly easy for a bit.


wetness

After four days of lying (but increasingly patchy) snow, the weather finally broke overnight. Today is around 9 or 10C, raining, and increasingly strong winds. For the first time in a week, I haven’t lit the stove, but the central heating is working pretty hard to keep the temperature up, due to the wind.

I had my covid jab on Thursday (21st). My arm is still a bit sore, especially if I accidentally lie on it when going to sleep, and I feel generally aching. I’m not sure if that’s weather or vaccination or both, but hopefully it will wear off over the next day or so.