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More Than A Casual Link?

Yesterday, I took my Infliximab injection late. Over a week late. I had that very bad shoulder pain, which felt it was like in joints and muscles.  I have done some reading about it online, and Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune condition much like Crohn’s and about 35-40% of Crohn’s sufferers also have R.A. 

After taking the Infliximab injection yesterday morning, the shoulder pain has dissipated, and the only pain is that in my middle fingers, which I seem to get from time to time in any case. Thinking back too, before I was on the injections – we’re going back 4-5 years now – I was often getting pain in my upper arms and shoulders, which I usually no longer get – until I missed this injection last week, that is! 

What have I learnt from this? 1. Do NOT forget to take one’s meds on time! 2. There COULD be a link between the late injection and the extra pain that I have had, but of course, it’s not any kind of scientifically run test. I didn’t miss the injection on purpose anyway!


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Feeling One’s Age?

I was reading a post online a day or two ago from someone who was complaining that they were ‘feeling their age’ and they had just turned 63. There was a reply from someone who was about twenty older than that, painting a picture of mounting immobility.

I’ve just turned 65 last week. I really cannot believe that.

I don’t feel much different than 10,20,30 years ago. There are a couple of changes though. I do find myself feeling a little stiffer in the joints when I’ve been in one position for some time, such as lying in bed or sitting at my desk here in the office. I also find myself feeling like a nap when I get home in the late afternoon. I’ve never been one for taking daytime naps, and, even now, if I were to go to bed for a post-lunch lie-down, I wouldn’t sleep, but I do find myself nodding off on the sofa. I also can’t chuck down the beers like I used to without feeling decidedly ‘off’ the next day. Not hungover, with a headache or nausea, you’ll understand, just ‘off’. Finally, for now, I’ve changed from being a night owl who couldn’t get to sleep at night, to being very ready for bed by ten pm, and awake soon after five am!

I really don’t think about my age very much. There’s not much I can do about it anyway. The days, weeks, months and years tick by, and it is true that they seem to go quicker as you get older.

I don’t feel old at all though, and my mind is still twenty something in many ways. No, I don’t want to go hang out with friends and party and drink all night, but I didn’t do that an awful lot even back then, just once in a while and it was fun then, but doesn’t feel like it would be fun now, either to do, or to suffer the after effects the next morning!

I am trying to be a bit more active, but then again, I’ve never been much a gym type and never played any active sports, not since I left school, and I wasn’t much of a fan even back then!

Old is not in my personal vocabulary, but I shall shall try and age gracefully, whatever that may entail, and I hope I long keep the ability to wander around town when I wish to!

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Back in 2007

I had just joined Facebook, and I was writing down some of my daily activities. I was mostly working from home in those days, so I was reliant on both a computer and the Internet. A couple of the things we still debate is how we would or wouldn’t cope without the Internet, and how much time spent online is too much. Here is such a post from back then…

Outage

Yesterday afternoon a passing thunderstorm co-incided with a complete loss of cable service.

Now here at Kimjac Towers we are pretty much reliant on it, as we use it for the Internet, for the TV, and for the phone.

For the first few minutes, I kept thinking that it would come up again in just a moment, but it didn’t, and then I resolved that I didn’t need to have the net to get some tasks done; that I could live without it for a while.

That was it really. Internet. No, l’m not an Internet addict, but I do rely on it for much of my work, and also for entertainment at times, and as a general information source.

There is that question, and reply from some:

“What would you do without the Internet? When I was growing up we didn’t have it!”

OK, well to respond to that is quite simple. When I was growing up, I didn’t have Internet. I didn’t get my first simple computer until I was 22. That, folks, was a Sinclair ZX81, with 1K RAM. I added a 16K RAM pack to it. Yes 16K, you read it correctly.

In 1985, I got a Commodore 64. I then heard about an online service called Compunet. I signed up. I’ve been online ever since. 1987 was the year I got my first PC. Even back then I wanted a “serious” machine, rather than a games system. It came with 640K RAM, a 12 inch VGA monitor (Standard VGA was 256 colors at 640 x 480), and a 30MB Hard Drive. It also had one of the new 3.5inch floppy drives. The whole thing cost around $2,000.

It came with MS-DOS 3.3, and a set of disks marked Windows 1.0 I installed Windows 1.0, and there was a GUl, with some widget things like a notepad, and a clock, and a very simple Word processor, and that was about it. I took it off, as it was not really much use. I stayed firmly in the DOS camp for the next 6 years. The only reason I finally gave in, and put Windows 3.1 on my computer, was that I wanted to be able to look at this new-fangled World Wide Web, and I couldn’t do that in DOS – well not graphically anyway. I’d gotten my first proper Internet account in 1993, and wanted to go explore.

For me though, the most exciting thing was email! I could communicate with all these people everywhere – well I could once I got everyone else I knew on the net too!

What’s the Internet? What’s a modem? Why do I want that?

Now we take it pretty much for granted, and miss it when it goes out.

So to the person that makes the statement about how we lived before it – yes we did of course. Same as we did before the mobile phone, digital camera, telephone, television, radio, and even electricity. There are still plenty of elderly folks in rural America that will tell you about life on a farm without electricity, and how the REA from 1935 onwards bought light into their homes.

So back to yesterdays outage. What did I do? I did some local file maintenance on the network, and then took the opportunity to get away from the computer for a while and go read a book.

After all, the computer is one of our slaves, not our master, right?

What did I learn from this? I learned that it is a good idea to have some non-Internet tasks in the to-do list, so that during a time of outage I can still get on with some work.

I still do not let the computer become my master either, but treat it as a useful tool with which to work, communicate and also entertain. However, I also make sure I have a back-up. A physical notebook, a regular telephone, music to listen to, and books to read.

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Music Down The Years

I’ve always had very catholic tastes in music. Catholic in terms of all-encompassing, broad-minded, and inclusive. There aren’t any musical genres that I refuse to listen to, although there are several that I much prefer. Also, just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean it isn’t good music. It’s just not to my taste.

As someone born at the tail end of the 1950s, I first became aware of music in the mid-’60s; in those days in our house there was no all-day television, and the radio was on most of the day. Radio was used much more in those days as entertainment. We only had the BBC, although we could get a few station broadcasting from mainland Europe, such as Hilversum from Holland, and Radio Luxembourg. The BBC of the day was still very staid, like an elderly auntie, as the BBC was affectionately known. Not like today when almost everyone seems to have the knives out for the corporation!

The Light Programme played mostly light music. That was the dance music of the day, not as we would think of it these days, but orchestral tunes, from the likes of Mantovani and Victor Sylvester.

The Third Programme was the classical station, and the Home Service was, in its own way in those times, talk radio.

There were plays on the radio, there were quiz shows, there were lectures, documentaries, and political discussions. There were even radio soap operas and The Archers hold the record for being the longest running soap in the world, having debuted in the halcyon radio days of 1951.

There was though, almost no pop music. Nothing from the charts of the day. There was but one show for one hour per week, with a run-down of the charts and that was that. In the mid-60s some enterprising folks set up radio stations on ships (and wartime forts) broadcasting from outside the three mile limit in international waters. Unlike the BBC they play the pop tunes of the day, and many teenagers, having purchased the new transistor radios, which ran from batteries and were portable, tuned into these ‘pirates’. It wasn’t just the kids though. My mother always enjoyed music and she would tune in too. They were all AM stations, or ‘Medium Wave’ as it was known. There was Radio London, Radio Veronica, Radio City, Radio North Sea International, Radio 390, and probably the most remembered, Radio Caroline. The authorities didn’t like this one bit and within three years they were closed down by the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act of 1967, which made it illegal to advertise or supply these stations. They all closed down except for one or two that decided to carry on.

The Government reorganised BBC Radio and The Light Programme became Radio 2; the Third Programme become Radio 3, and the Home Service become Radio 4. A brand new station, Radio 1 started up, using a lot of the DJs that had been broadcasting on the pirate stations.

We now had all-day pop music! However, it was just one station. In the early ’70s the BBC started to set up local radio stations, and that gave a bit more variety. It wasn’t until 1973, when commercial radio was given the go-ahead that things really started to change and the teenagers of the day (of which I was one), had a much better choice of contemporary music.

Cassette players came along, and most of us bought one and tried to record stuff from the radio, hoping the DJ wouldn’t take over the records too much!

I started a Saturday job and had some money of my own, so I bought a record player and started buying records. I did go a bit crazy with that, as I always enjoyed music, and it was good to play what you wanted to play when you wanted to, which you could with records and tapes of course.

When I started writing this article, I didn’t intend to start with a history of music on the radio, but it was such a big part of my early years, I couldn’t really omit it.

Anyway, I really started listening to a mix of radio and my parents 78s, which were definitely pre-rock ‘n’ roll! It led to a love of that music from those far away days, before even I was born that I still sometimes enjoy to this day.

In the 70’s though, I really got into the pop music scene. Some of my friends didn’t, and considered pop music somehow beneath them, but I swallowed most of it up. I did tend to go for the rock side of the charts though, more than the bubblegum stuff; preferring Queen to the Bay City Rollers, or Alice Cooper to David Essex.

As we moved into the ’80s and I settled down and quit partying and also got married, bought a house, and then along came the kids, my disposable income available for music went down somewhat. That was pretty much in line though with my enthusiasm for pop music waning as the decade wore on. I got busy with life, and although I still listened to music, I was more and more listening to the old stuff from the ’60s and ’70s and not paying much mind to the pop charts. The ’90s came and went musically as did the noughties. I was in the United States for a while, and I really got into Americana. I’ve always liked British Folk Music but Americana is, of course, something different. Returning to the UK and as broadband bandwidth increased, and the streaming libraries from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music and others grew bigger, and the quality got better, I started listening to more and more contemporary jazz and I’ve also developed a love for electronic music of many kinds, such a trance, techno, drum and bass, house, and EDM.

As I write this in 2023, I am looking forward to what the next twenty years will bring to the music scene. Some will go in one ear and out of the other, but I know that some I will embrace enthusiastically.

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Onwards & Downwards

Yes, you read it correctly. Back in 2010, I was down to 187lbs. Today, in July 2023, I read 244 on the bathroom scales. Most of my weight is around my middle. That’s supposed to be the worst place. On top of that I have Crohn’s Disease, albeit quite mildly compared to many. Also, I have an umbilical hernia, which isn’t going to go away and extra belly fat is certainly not going to help it.

I’ve decided I’ll make an effort to shed some weight. My first goal is to get back under 220 and then under 200. Ideally, I would like to get back down to around 170, which would put me smack dab in the middle of the part of the BMI scale. I know that BMI isn’t everything, and that losing weight means moving muscle as well as fat, but I am going to make an effort to be more active.

I’m not going to start some strict regimen that I can’t or won’t keep up. It’s not any good thrashing myself into shape, only to get tired of the restrictions and gradually put the weight back on again.

Most of the weight I put on in the last dozen years has been down to bad eating choices. I don’t eat much sweet stuff, don’t drink soda pop, don’t’ add sugar to my coffee or tea. It’s the savoury stuff that’s my undoing. I love meat pies, sausages, chips, crisps, scotch eggs and sausage rolls. They are high in calories fat and often carbs too.

Kathy and I have ben asking an effort to eat more healthily too. We prepare and cook most of our meals at home, and usually from scratch, not out of a packet or a ready meal.

I think this is going to take me the best part of a year, but if I can be more sensible, eat smaller portions, drink less alcohol, eat out less too (you don’t know what’s in it!), I might stand a chance of succeeding.

So, as I said in the title, it’s onwards and (hopefully) downwards, from here!

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A Walking Day

Sunday, the 19th of February 2023, started brightly if a little chilly.

I got up and come downstairs and I made some coffee for myself, and a cup of tea for Kathy so that she can keep an eye on her blood pressure. It seems to work as her pressure has been pretty much normal lately, even though she does take blood pressure medication. I also tell her not to get stressed about stuff, as it doesn’t solve anything and it’s not good for her health.

I’ve made myself the regular pot of coffee, and, as I bought a tiger loaf yesterday, I’ve had some of that to eat today with butter and cheese spread for my breakfast. I don’t know yet what Kathy would like.

I slept pretty well last night. We went to bed early, real early, and I was listening to the end of an Audiobook about life in mediaeval England which was good. It was very interesting and also easy to listen to, and quite absorbing. I fell asleep towards the very end, but that was because I was tired, not because I wasn’t interested! I woke up a couple of times in the night, but all in all, I had a good night’s sleep. At one point I was dreaming that I was driving a bus. This bus had a clutch, and it was really really difficult to push down it was hurting my leg, and everyone was telling me to hurry up and get a move on. Well, then, I woke up and I had the most enormous cramp in my left leg. That was in the middle of the night. I got up and went for a pee, got back into bed and went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up again until just after seven o’clock.

Today we are going to go out for a walk. It’s in North London, so it will make a change to walk somewhere different. I have charged up the Gimbal and I am charging up the headphones. I will bring the rucksack, which will make it easier to carry everything, and will make it lighter for Kathy. I don’t mind taking the rucksack as long as it is not too heavy and not too full of stuff that makes my shoulders ache over time. I think I will be OK with that though. The walk is about six miles and the plan is to go to a pub afterwards and have a social gathering, some drinks and something to eat.

We got out on time and got to the bus stop spot on, in time to get the 105 bus to Southall.

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We took the train to Farringdon and then the number 4 bus to Angel, as I mentioned before.

We got to the Angel pub just after midday and we had a couple of drinks and something to eat.

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We met up with Ken’s group. We started by purchasing an annual membership and started off on our walk.

We got left behind, as we had to go to the toilet at the Costa we got to, and everyone had left. I had a good idea where they had gone and I caught up with everyone but it was a bit of a strain for Kathy.

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The weather was spot on and pleasant; I actually got a bit warm with my coat on. The walk was supposed to be about six miles but I think it was a bit over seven miles. 

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When we finished the walk we went to The White Swan pub. It was a Wetherspoons, and very disappointing. No real choice of ales. I had London Pride and that wasn’t in good nick. We finished our drink and then we took the number 4 bus again back to Farringdon and then the Elizabeth Line to Southall and a 105 bus to the Queen’s Head where we had some dinner.

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After that, we walked home and watched a few photos on the TV, but most hadn’t synced properly so we turned it off and went to bed.

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Infusions

One thing I have to restart for the New Year is my regular eight-weekly infusions at West Middlesex Hospital. The first one was this morning.

After having a little game to get there, with various buses and ending with a short walk from the main road, I got there just in time for my 09:30 appointment.

West Middlesex Hospital – Main Entrance

After leaving there and just missing an H22 bus, we took a 117 and got off at Bell Corner and went into The Moon Under Water, the local Wetherspoons Pub on Staines Road.

Wetherspoons Large Breakfast

We were both hungry. Kathy had the American Breakfast, with pancakes and syrup, eggs and sausages, and I had the full English above.

Some decent beers were on the handpump there too. I had a couple of them.

There are the snobs out there who complain about Wetherspoons, but I’ve always had a decent cask ale in my local one, and found the food to be of decent quality too.

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It’s Almost Over

2022 hasn’t been a bad year for me. It’s not been particularly exciting, but it’s certainly not been catastrophic either.

Doesn’t Time Fly?

I’ve just ticked along at work; ticked along at home, and I have generally taken things easy. I think perhaps I’ve taken things too easy.

Next year I feel I should set myself some new challenges and revisit some old ones too.

I am going to set myself a number of goals and see if I can have the discipline to not only start them but to continue them and see them through. Only time will tell, of course, but if I don’t succeed I’ve really only got myself to blame.

It has been a relatively sober festive season; I’ve only been to the pub once, and I’ve barely drunk anything at home. That’s not a bad thing of course, and it does mean I’ve been a little more productive at home. A few pounds saved methinks, both in wealth and in health!

So, here’s to a safe, productive and happy New Year in 2023.

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Bored? I Don’t Have Time For That!

Bored? I don’t understand that. While I will accept that some of the things one has to do in life can be darn tedious, I can’t ever say that I’m bored.

On the contrary, I find that twenty-four hours in a day isn’t enough.

I need to sleep, eat and work. That can take up to 20 hours a day, which doesn’t leave much time for anything else. When I have a day off, I never seem to find the time to do all the things I want to do. Catching up on overdue tasks and chores; more pleasurable things such as reading a new book, listening to music, watching a movie, having a meal out (or a meal in), a couple of hours in the pub, putting the world to rights over a couple of pints.

I can’t do anything that I WOULD find boring, but I’ve always got something to do!

First published at https://ianbmay.com/bored-i-dont-have-time-for-that/

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Another Week Rolls By

This week has been pretty much the same as last week, although the lockdown is easing. Kathy has gone back to work albeit for shorter hours for now.

At work we are gearing up to move operations nearer to normal. Fares are soon going be collected again and front doors reopened. This depends on how quickly the company can get the drivers’ cab areas sealed properly. Once done, they’ll be examined before being allowed to leave the garages. Every single vehicle will be checked.

Life outside work goes on as before. Although non-essential shops are being allowed to open from the 15th June, the hospitality sector is still closed down. There’s not much point going out on a day off, as there’s nowhere to go for a coffee, a beer, lunch or dinner. It is a bit tiresome I guess, but I fully understand the necessity, of course. It would be crazy to rick a second wave right now by opening everything up too quickly. Even at Government level, it’s still all pretty much a guessing game; a balancing act.

I ordered some more beer, this time from Electric Bear Brewing Company. £35 for 12 assorted cans. 4 each of Session IPA; A Wheat Beer; an IPA and an American Pale Ale, which is pictured below.

Session IPA
A Session IPA

I had a couple of these on Friday evening. Went down nicely with some of the chicken from The Ethical Butcher.