Silver Lining

Relief

Sometimes the best things in life really do come in small packages.  Costing about £3.00.  Like corn plasters. 

I think I'm in heaven!

Take this to heart, people: running hurts your feet. 

Have good weekends.  See you on Monday!

Galloping paranoia

Roughly this time last year, I had my First Date post-PH.  His name was (probably still is) Malcolm (yeah, yeah.  I know).  He was a surveyor.  I hadn't been on a date for the better part of a decade, so it was jolly exciting.  I did all the right things - gave myself a big fancy facial the week before, went and got everything waxed.  And I do mean everything (except armpits.  There's really no call for that kind of pain) because, well, you can never be over-prepared, can you?  I bought new clothes (but not underwear.  I'm not that kind of a first date girl).  I ponced around with makeup for oh, a good hour the day before, trying out different 'looks' before I decided not to bother, much. 

But the critical thing, for the purpose of this story, is the waxing.  I got my lip, eyebrows, bikini and legs waxed.  But I want you to focus on the legs.  Legs.  OK?

Anyway, the date went swimmingly.  We met in a bar in the next door village, and had a couple of drinks, and then went to the Trafford Centre and had something to eat, and went to another bar for more drinks.  And then we did snogging.  I like snogging.  So, although it was a bit weird snogging someone who was Not My Husband, I got over it quite quickly.  We did quite a lot of snogging.  We snogged into the wee small hours, and then - because I'm not that sort of first date girl, remember - we went our separate ways.  Me to my home, him to his hotel.  For he was not from around these parts.

So all in all it was a Very Successful Evening.  Or so it appeared.  But...

All through the evening, I was aware of an irritating itch on my right calf.  Nothing really to get over excited about.  Specially when there was snogging on offer.  But there it was; you know - persistent.  And itchy.  But mostly itchy.  Itch, itch, itch.  I didn't think much of it. It was just a little, local itchy patch on my right calf.  Itch, itch, itch.  And I kept itching it through my new linen trousers.  Itchy, itch itch.

I didn't sleep well that night.  I was over-stimulated from too much snogging.  I had stubble rash on my chin and chapped lips, and other things you generally associate with late adolescent enthusiasm.  I was wondering whether Malcolm would call me in the morning.  I was wondering whether it would be cool to call him.  A parade of exciting possibilities marched through my brain, and kept me from too much sleep.  That, and a little itchy patch on my leg which was irritatingly itchy. 

In the morning I had a shower, and looked at my itchy patch.  It was very red.  It had little blisters in it.  I was sure it was bigger than it had been last night.  I was concerned by its redness and its hotness and its blisteryness.

So off I went to the Saturday surgery, which involves an endless round of waiting in strange waiting rooms for whichever GP is available to cast a cursory eye over you.  I felt a bit stupid with my itchy leg.  But god, it was itchy.  Really, really itchy scratchy itchy.  Burningly itchy.

The doctor looked at it and said some antibiotics would sort it out.  And some topical steroid cream.  So I went home, and swallowed some antibiotics. I considered calling Malcolm, and thanking him for the snogging, but I was beginning to feel grumpy and decided against it.  I stuck my poorly leg on a footstool and dozed off.

I woke up in the late afternoon, itching.  It was bloody painful.  The red area was larger, more of the blisters had turned bloody, and the whole thing was beginning to look swollen.  I took more pills, rubbed in more cream and went to bed to sleep off the rest of my snog induced hangover.

The next morning, the redness had spread all the way down my leg.  It had gone from roughly an inch across and a couple of inches long to a good 5 inches long and 4 inches across.  The central area, where it had started, was now a healthy crop of bloody blisters and the edges were just little blistery blisters.  The weight of the duvet on it was unbearable.  Walking was painful.  Resting the leg on anything at the wrong angle was excruciating.  I found another skirt, and a pair of good hippy clogs, and rang NHS direct. 

Up until this point, I assumed this was just some new form of psoriasis, sent to burst my post-snog-euphoria bubble.  I described what had been happening to the lovely lady on the phone, and she frightened the bejasus out of me by telling me that she'd ring the emergency doctor on my behalf to tell them to expect me, and I was to take myself straight there.

On arrival, we were ushered straight into the surgery, and I lifted my skirt.  The doctor touched the central, bloody area, which had grown since I got out of bed, thereby launching me into orbit, it was so painful.  She called another doctor in.

The new doctor drew round the edges of my red patch with a biro, and then they did some whispering.  The first doctor came and told me that they thought I had cellulitis.  I thought "bloody cheek!  I may be a bit overweight, but I don't have cellulite on my bloody calf!".  She said I needed to go to the hospital and get some intravenous antibiotics, but that I should be ok with just two doses and I'd be home by 10pm.  It was just after midday at this point. 

The GP had done some paperwork which meant we bypassed A&E and I was admitted straight onto a ward.  That was also quite scary.  I sat on my bed, and had blood pressure, temperature and some blood tests taken.  A doctor came and looked at my leg.  The redness had spread half an inch beyond the biro outline which had been drawn only an hour or so before.  He was concerned by the bleeding (which always stayed below the skin), and drew round that area too.  The pressure of his pen made me scream.

A more senior doctor arrived, eventually.  By now it was about 5pm and I was worried about the children.  I'd rung PH and told him what was happening from the emergency doctor surgery, and now I rang back and said the drugs hadn't started yet and it looked unlikely I'd make the 10pm hometime.  I hobbled back to bed.  I couldn't take any weight on my leg at this point.

The second doctor came back and explained that they were fairly sure it was cellulitis but the fact that it was bleeding was concerning them and they had to bear in mind that it could develop into septicaemia or necrotising fasciitis.   They were going to put me on the drip now.  Would I still be home by 10pm, I asked, clinging to the earlier promise.  Even my stubble rash was failing to cheer me up by now.  No, he said.  If I refused treatment and the infection continued to spread, I was in danger of losing the leg and he strongly recommended I stay put until they got it under control.  He showed me how far the infection had spread.  There was just an inch of clear, healthy white skin on my inner calf.  Otherwise, my whole lower leg from knee to ankle was swollen,red and angry and blistered, with quite a lot of bleeding.

To cut a very long story only a little shorter, I was in hospital for a week in the end.  On IV drugs for 5 days of that.  They never worked out how the infection got into my leg.  It can get into the body anywhere, apparently, through any scratch.  It commonly comes in through insect bites or athlete's foot, but I hadn't had either.  I was told not to have my legs waxed again for another 3 months, at the very least.

And as for Malcolm.  Well, I never saw him again.  It turned out that he wasn't quite as divorced as he'd led me to believe.  Not even separated.  Nor as childless, either.  In fact, it was all very England 2, Columbia 0.

So today, I've been to get my legs waxed.  For the first time since.  And now I'm just a big bumbling wreck of paranoia.  And I itch.  Everywhere!

We ran against the wind all the way round this afternoon.  Quite a big, strong wind.  So we decided against the full 5 mile monty.  Instead we ran a little over 3 miles (4.97 km) in 5531 steps, at a massive 9.0km/h in 32.59 minutes.  It was extremely hard going - a good 8-10 bpm harder than the 8km we ran the day before yesterday.  But I'm pleased with the increase in speed!

Question

You know how it is with me and cars.  Well, my passenger side front wheel arch has a hole.  Down at the bottom.  Not in the bodywork, the interior black bit that's parallel to the tyre - do you follow me?  Anyway, it has a hole.  I don't know how or when it got there, though it's bound to be recently and because of something I've done!

Is it serious?  Do I need to treat it urgently and get it fixed?  Or can I safely ignore it?

Ok, that was 3 questions.  So shoot me!

Happy Valley

I got some divorce papers this morning. Not my Nisi; for reasons I don't fully understand, I've had to petition twice, and this is the affidavit for the second time round. But it includes PH's indication of why he shouldn't pay the costs of the divorce.  Because, he says, the marital breakdown was my fault: I stopped talking to him; I ran up debts; we went to Relate and at the end of that I said I saw no future in the relationship.

I know it's just words on a piece of paper.  I should just let it go.  It should be powerless to affect me; after all, he doesn't often occupy space in my head any more, and just at the moment I've no space to rent.

But it saddens me, all the same.  Mostly it saddens me because of his total inability to accept *any* responsibility for what happened.  The fact that he cannot acknowledge that anything he did was in any way or to any degree unacceptable.  The drinking, the raging, the waking me up every night and shouting for hours.  All that, I think I could have tolerated if it weren't for the Other Thing.  And he won't even accept now that that happened at all, though at the time he acknowledged it - or I thought he had.  I think if he'd ever said to me "yes, that was wrong.  I'm sorry.", I could have tolerated the rest.  Not happily.  Our happy days were over by then.  But I could have lived it.

Yet once we loved each other, deeply.  I know that I'll never be loved that way again by anyone, ever.  Apparently, when he first saw me, he told the friend who introduced us "I want to spend the rest of my life with that woman"; and some years later when we were both free, he set about pursuing that goal.  Somewhat eccentrically, to be sure, and in retrospect his eccentricity should have raised some warning flags.  But what's important is that at the time, the eccentricity was endearing; it was part of his charm. 

Somewhere along the way, that all soured.  After the babies arrived, I think.  After Daisy's twin was lost and the storm had broken.  And now he can't accept any responsibility.  I would love to have the kind of relationship with him now where he could come and spend time with the kids after school, get them ready for bed, read them bedtime stories and go again.  I know several other divorced couples who manage this degree of civility for their children. 

But my fear of him got in the way.  That, and the fact that he has to predicate his life on the lie that it was *all my fault*, that he is the innocent victim and in no way responsible for what happened to us.  And, of course, the fact that it turns out that while it was all going on; the drinking, the raging, the Other Thing; while I was hoping we could turn it round and get back on track, it appears that he was seeing someone else after all. 

Because he delights in my fear of him; because it has to be *all my fault* in order for his new relationship to survive; because he can never accept any responsibility for any part of what happened; for those reasons our children will never enjoy the sight of both their parents at a school play, at their graduation.  They will be anxious about whether words will be exchanged at their significant milestones.  Can they invite Mum and Dad together?  Will they behave? 

Words on a piece of paper.  I shall go to the court tomorrow and swear the Affidavit, and wait for my Nisi.  And in a day or two I will forget the words on a piece of paper. 

But right now, I'm feeling sad and in need of a hug. 

So I took the muttley to Happy Valley and listened to Aretha Franklin and watched the kingfisher darting up and down the river.  And had a charming conversation with a little robin redbreast about the delights of Daddy Long Legs.  We met an old man walking a fox terrier, who regaled me with tales of his forthcoming cruise up the coast of Norway to the Arctic circle, and how he had to get home and help his wife pack. 

And his fox terrier was only 15 months old, and un-neutered, so now the muttley is buggered but not in quite the way I intended when I set out!

Funny, the way things work out sometimes, isn't it?

ground mist

Not terribly clear photos - no time to set the camera up, so it was just me and the trusty old Sony at the bottom of the garden.  Improperly clad in the cold, too - have some sympathy.

But they're kind of atmospheric, all the same.  I love ground mist.  It's really moody stuff, isn't it?

Cat Buckaroo

Just in case anyone missed the link in the estimable Mr Jennic's comment yesterday, you really *need* to go and look at this:

http://www.ashearer.f2s.com/blog/?p=2

I peed myself!  So funny!  I've been trying to play it with the dog all afternoon, but he's too stupid and enthusiastic to make it much good.  I'd try with our cat, but he's vicious which adds a whole extra element to the game...  I might get the camera involved later.  Though at the moment, I'm so knackered I can see the dog playing it with me!

Incidentally, PH, I'm not intending to take any cats with me when I move.  If you want the one that's yours, you'd best let me know fairly soon.

Get us!

8.02km, 8918 steps, 8.9km/h 53.47 minutes.  And the heartrate monitor is upstairs and frankly, I'm too shagged to go and tell you what my heartrate scores are but they weren't bad.  Not bad at all!

It rained hard at the beginning, and eased up a bit for the end, resulting in wet feet early on, and now I have blisters.  So part of my rest day tomorrow will be spent hunting down some compeed.  So, Grump, 1000 mile socks are only fool proof if they're dry.  I learnt this so you don't have to!

I'm baaacckkk!

5.25km, 5838 steps, 8.8km/h, 35.33 minutes, with an average heartrate of 163 bpm - about 8 beats lower than when I was struggling last week.  Much better!  I felt good.  Will head for 8km tomorrow, and see how I get on.

I went with Phoenix, as I do for all my best runs.  We were about half way through when a van drew up to us (it was actually travelling in the opposite direction), pulled up and asked directions.  Well, obviously it was stopped so we couldn't carry on, so we jogged on the spot while I told him where he wanted to go.  Meantime, he was fixated on Phoenix's general chest area.  Directions imparted, we were all thinking of moving off, and I finished off with "Right at the B&Q roundabout back to the motorway, and don't look at her tits". 

His face was a picture.  Bless!

Pond Life

It's the time of year when I randomly decide to do some gardening on the pond at the bottom of the garden.  It's thoroughly overgrown, with water mint; irises; soldiers; a lily or two; some margin plants which have been strangled by moss and encroaching grass and god knows what else besides.  I really should have done something about it months ago, before the creatures started spawning, but I'm not a cold weather person and the thought of venturing out in February and immersing myself to the elbows in freezing, muddy water just wasn't appealing. 

So I reach a compromise with myself: I'll take the grass, moss and weeds out of the iris' planter; pull up the other marginal planter which probably needs emptying out and starting again; and proceed *very* carefully with the water plants.

This is the sort of thing best done after school.  Slithery and creepy crawly creatures being a small boy's favourite entertainment and all.  So we carefully tugged at some dead sticks of water mint, and watched as the creatures escaped down, down, plumbing the depths of the pond (about 3 1/2 foot if memory serves!) 

We've seen mature and juvenile newts; toads of varying size; and not many frogs at all, which is a shame.

But most excitement is caused by the little watery worm things (which I think might grow up to be leeches), the water skaters and pond spiders and small swimming beetles which can be gasped, screamed and ewwwed at.  And I have extracted two small, anxious promises not to poke and fiddle, and left them watching fascinated.  £10 is promised to the first person to show me a newt.  I won't be out of pocket - slippery little suckers move far too quickly.

No sooner am I indoors, than Daisy picks up the luridly purple Early Learning Centre rake, and starts raking over what greenery's left in the pond with it.  I rap, sharply, on the window, and the child leaps up like a startled deer, dropping the offending rake, and standing smartly to attention with her hands behind her back in an almost Disney-esque caricature of wounded innocence.  She obviously has no idea where the noise came from, and gazed around her in innocent protest.

Ten minutes later she appeared beside me.

"Mum, can me and Dan have a biscuit?"

"Haven't you had one already?"

"No"

" You have!  I saw you!"

[shuffle and look abashed] "Well, yes.  But we had that biscuit before, a little earlier than we are having this biscuit"

"Is that a reason to give you another biscuit?"

[shy grin.  She knows she's winning] "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because we like biscuits."

She wants watching, that one.