Staring emptiness

11°C, grey but dry.


Woke puzzled: why feel all this staring emptiness?
Later it became apparent that I merely have a cold. Back to the slow kind of country then for me.
Two astounding plants
..
Angelica (above) & Artemesia Ludovicia, below

They’re shooting up like something from jack-in-the-beanstalk, flashing out massive paddle like leaves as they go. They make me smile these two.
What will they do next (don’t tell me, I await the surprise)?

Acephalgic migraine

7°C, light winds, Sun. C=62 miles


"real ear-bashing".: Funniest news story of the weekend. Mr Smith, what were the films called? I bet you are looking back on the story and wondering if it was really worthwhile for a hand-shandy.
A Migraine: could this be one, Cycling towards home today in the blazing sunshine- I could see a shimmering lightshow, nice but this one was in my eyes. It was rather like christmas decorations flickering at double speed, or maybe like my eyes recovering from an accidental glance at the sun. I’ve had this at work once or twice; parts of my vision can’t resolve printed words if I am reading. Each time it seems to clear up after half an hour or so. A disturbing event; I was about an hour from home when it started, so I rode faster and faster in case it it became prohibitively bad. I rode fast so I’d be home before the worst happened and I couldn’t see to ride safely.
Incidentally, I have had a dull headache for the last few days. A connection seems possible.

Wanted: new teeth

6°C. Dry, fresh with a light breeze, sun too.


Teeth: I need new ones. Mine are all broken and worn down. The edges of the breaks are quite sharp, you can feel it if you push your tongue against the shattered edges.
iPodding: I have* a pile of 24 CDs to convert in iTunes. It’s going so fast I can’t stop, half way now, can I last* the whole course before spinning out?.
That should say " iHave " and can " iLast "

Getting colder, I may have to switch on the heating tomorrow.

Summer cold

24.5°C ( yesterday). Clear & sunny.


Got a summer cold, a very achey snotty affair this one. I have to sleep frequently, and would take a day off school if it weren’t the weekend.
 

Disturbed sight.

22.5°C, sun


Something disturbing happened at work today. I started to ses fliskering bright lights, as if dazzled by the sun. It crept in from the right side of my vision, mostly in my right eye and eventually started to obscure things I was reading. I decided ot make it to the end of the lesson, then just get home as quickly as I could before doing somethign abotu it. My big fear since last year is the detatchd retina. there was no veil of darkenss so that was a fear not worth taking seriously. Oddly, by the time I’d left to get changed, it had cleared.
I wonder if it was a migrane, they can happen with no headache- my mother used to get them.

I’m alive….I’m alive!

-2°C, clear, winter has arrived.


Finally, recovery is here. Yesterday was the first time I felt alive again after over 2 weeks. That, was a long haul.
Now I can get on with it all. Even managed to finish that stubborn level in Company of Heroes. Wow.
this all, of course, means that I have only been cycling once this year. Thus explaining the blog-drought this last month. The rivers are still high.

Still ill

9°C, clear.


Dog experience: imagine playing with your mates in the park, running about and having a generally exciting time. Made more so by no having not seen a particular friend for nearly six months. Eventually you get out of breath and you take a moment to have a little sit down. Moments later your long lost friend decides to pee on you. That’s what happened to my dog this morning, in fact he did it again to the other dog too. You just wouldn’t accept that in social circles would you?
No?- well i suppose you just aren’t as cool as my two poodles are you.
 
They did get a wash-down when we got home.

less fever, more gummed

12°C, cloudy, still no ice in Moscow!


Saturday was a bad day for this cold, I was all a shiverin’ in the late evening after sleeping most of the day. There followed a rotten night.
That bout has given me a chance to take big bites out of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. The book meandered a during some of the middle passages, but then regained its pace near the end. There are many instances where I have read arguments and felt thoroughly supported in my own views. My own distaste for faith schools is a good example. RD went further and suggests we resist the practice of referring to children as a Catholic child, or Moslem boy or Jewish girl, we could though, say child of a Christian family (and so on). There is a little more to read, but then I can start lending the book out.

If there weren’t so many wanting to borrow it, I could consider the practise of "Bookcrossing". That is some organised way of planting a finished-with book so someone can pick it up to read.

Weather and worrying about it: hold back a little,
Here is a graph of recent trends


Nothing in there to start excessive panic. Curiously- 1940 peaks as a warm year, a year famous for it’s harsh winter her in the UK and western Europe.

Hay fever

27°C,


Hay-fever is bad today. Worse than I can remember for a long time.
Drat.
A quote for yesterday:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Shakespeare