Win

I managed to get through the worst winter in my 40 odd year memory with barely a whimper from my arthritis. It might have had to do with my state of mind; but for 5 months I barely had a twinge. I finished my physio just after Christmas and was equipped with a series of exercises and stretches to keep it from seizing up if it so deemed. I thought I was getting a handle on this back problem.

Then at the beginning of May, I had a day that sort of changed everything. It wasn't a day of physical exertion, but it was a day of potentially massive change. The affect it had on me was similar to being dropped off a tall building - amazingly. Over the last 6 weeks, I've been plagued by an almost constant backache, which, of course, leads to other muscular problems and guess what? The stretches and exercises are not even touching it.

My back had been grumbling at me since Thursday - another indication that stress plays a large part in it, because I had an important meeting. By Friday it was telling me to take it easy and yesterday I thought I'd well and truly fucked it up. Ha! Yesterday was nothing. This morning I got out of bed and crumpled like a 110 year old cripple. The problem I have, which is a stenosis of the spine, is compounded by the fact that I also suffer from sciatica; so when the two scheme together, I become a battlefield for wave after wave of spasms. It's great being me on mornings like this...

The missus has this theory, which I'm sure is held by many others. This is that when you get to the weekend, your body relaxes and allows it to become the target of all manner of things - bugs, aches and pains, etc. I have to admit that while I've had a lot of time off work with my back and my shoulder injury; I also seem to spend an inordinate amount of time having crap weekends, only to wake up on a Monday morning feeling ready for action again - there's something unfair about that; yet also karmic.

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The temperature on my patio was 10 degrees centigrade yesterday at 2pm. It was June 19. I'm sure that we've all suffered cold days in June over the years (hell, Roger and I suffered a January day in July last year at 2000 Trees), but after the utterly crappy year we've had so far, it just felt like a knife being twisted.

Now we have Glastonbury, Wimbledon and test match cricket on the horizon and we all remember that the average for these events is usually rain, wind, mud and exasperating defeat, without the sun to make us feel better. Plus we have that budget next week; the one where we're all going to have to pay for the failure of our elected public officials to balance the books. If austerity is the key word for the coming decade, then 60 days of glorious summer weather would at least reduce peoples needs to have to spend money all the time to amuse themselves while it snows outside...

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Funniest Facebook status update I've seen for ages, courtesy of my mate Paul:
I've been chatting to a 15 year old on the internet. She's funny, sexy & flirty.
Now she tells me that she is an undercover cop - how fucking cool is that at her age?

I know it borders on the incredibly bad taste, but it's also damned funny!

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This week's exercise in futility is currently weighing in at 5,000 words plus and I'm barely halfway through it.
After reading The Stand for the first time in 20 years (it surprised me), it reawakened all of the bile I'd been suppressing about Stephen King's Dark Tower epic. I have, at several times in the last five years attempted to put into words the horror and disgust I felt towards Stephen King after he recovered from his near fatal hit and run; because it obviously had some negative effect on his writing. The impact of the camper van seemed to knock all of his talent out of him and replace it with some kind of evangelically metaphysical nonsense, illustrated perfectly by the way he decided to completely re-write the existing chapters of The Dark Tower, because he thought of a 'better' story.
I won't go into it here because I expect the 'essay' will end up on these pages, as I can't for the life of me see them appearing anywhere else.

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To answer one question I forgot about a few weeks ago: cornflakes.

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I'm sure there's more, but I need to go and lay on a floor that isn't covered in dogs...