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Friday 28 June 2013

Sinuses

Just a footnote.  Or nosenote.  I have had a headache, ranging from bad to head splitting, though not, I am guessing, anywhere near migraine status, but at times bad nonetheless. 

This headache started Tuesday afternoon, and on Friday morning, as I write this, it is just starting to fade.

My conclusion yesterday was that it was my sinuses.  Without giving too much yucky detail, I had some tension each side of my nose and the occasional "gurgle" from these positions, so me and Uncle Google reckoned it might well be related to my sinuses.

So I nipped down to the chemist yesterday to get some Sinutab and some menthol crystals (menthol, steam, bowl, towel) to help, and I think they have worked.  There was a slightly unpleasant moment an hour after taking the first Sinutab when I had a nasty taste in my mouth, which I concluded was my sinuses draining.  Anyway, just to report that I seem to be feeling better today.  Hurrah.

And . . . relax

We have a "quiet" one this weekend.  Just the Maggots sporting clubs, followed by lots of nothing.  To be precise, nothing involving others, so we will be suiting ourselves and getting on with homely stuff.  I, probably, will be mowing the lawn, having fed it yesterday just before the rain.  LO will be administering to the much and many activities that need doing to keep the household functioning, and the Maggots will be reproducing Wimbledon in the garden with their "two garden chairs and a rope" net and sticks and Crocs and even a skateboard to mark the lines.

We seem to be stuck in a bit of a rush at the moment.  It really does feel like those times when you are "abroad with work".  It may sound romantic and exotic, and may even draw a "lucky bugger" from some, but for those of us who have done it, we know that it is all about transport terminals, taxis, hotel rooms and business premises.  All exceedingly functional aspects, but none designed to be admired or to deliver any sort of aesthetic pleasure.  This is how our life feels at the moment.

The truth is, it is about a month until the Summer holidays, which, as I have said before, means 75% of the Scobi household stop their school-based activities.  We are all looking forward to this, and to our fantastic holiday.  My only fear is that sometimes, looking forward to something too much makes you forget to enjoy the now, and also when you get there it is not nearly as great as you had imagined it.

So, I wish you all a good weekend, and hope that you can practice some mindfulness that allows you to find pleasure in the present and not just in the future.  Sounds like good advice, may try and take it myself.

Until next week.

Monday 24 June 2013

Well, that was certainly a weekend

We had a great weekend.  It was a bit stressful getting to Brad and Angelina's, but once there, we had fun.

The evening was all as described on Friday, and the time of my nodding off was, perhaps somewhat to do with a well placed coffee at around 10.30pm, very late, and in fact I went to bed at the same time as everyone else, which was the ungodly hour of 0130 hours, approximately an hour after all the Maggots finally got to sleep. 

We had a leisurely awakening with lashings of tea, egg baps and cake, and left around midday somewhat refreshed, but basically all totally knackered.  This should have made for a very long day, however we managed it well, even stopping at Whiteley to get Maggot 1 a new shirt for his leaving disco.  At home, there were two, yes two, messages from Scobi Ma Senior about her broken answer machine on her newish phone.  Apparently "your father pressed some buttons", the regularly repeating theme of blaming the other, so I nipped round to get it sorted, and it seems to be broken so will be returned to the nice people at John Lewis today.

On return, we were getting our bodies clean and in to lounging clothes - onesies for the others, a smoking jacket and cravat for me - to watch the final of The Voice.  Being recorded, we could skip all the boring recap bits and got to the finale in record time.  And what a surprise it was, too.

This week we will be mostly doing all the usual things, without any nasty extras, so while it will be busy, we hope we will get through it without any major upsets.

I wish you a good week, and speak soon.

Friday 21 June 2013

And . . . relax

This week has been frantic, much more than usual.  LO had several extra commitments, and I have been at a conference one day and in the office a couple of others.  I missed the Maggots at their sports day, the final one for Maggot 1, but that is the nature of the modern working man.

I had a great conference yesterday, as I blogged yesterday.  They are always motivating, in as much as you are reminded that there really is a big, interesting Starfleet out there, and being dragged out of your trench to look to the horizon is something I need to do fairly regularly.  This conference did that for me.  It also gave me a few ideas of new areas of the business to investigate.

This weekend, we are going up to Brad and Angelina, with David and Samantha, and all the associated Maggots.  The Maggots love these weekends, giving them a chance to disappear upstairs and do whatever it is they do, record their farts or some other similar nonsense.  We also love it coz it is a chance to catch up with our friends, and spend a leisurely evening getting slowly drunk, enjoying good food and good conversation, and, for me at least, nodding off wherever I am sitting when the tiredness shutters close down.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.


Thursday 20 June 2013

Conference

At a conference, very good day. Lots of updates on tech strategy, and for me personally, lots of motivational ideas to give a kick up the @rse, maybe even a wake up call, which on a double word score is unbeatable for w###-word bingo, in driving my career forward. Coz as we all know, if you are not going forward, you are going backwards, and that is all without getting my ducks in a row, since there is no point running up the rhododendron tree until the rats have fled.  BINGO. 

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Tuesday

Tuesday's child is full of grace, and so am I.  Modesty is another one of my attributes.  As is my attribute.

Anyhow, Maggot 2 had a hospital appointment today and that went well, even if, at ten to ten, I suddenly realised I did not know where in the hospital we needed to go for the ten fifteen appointment.  Poor planning undoubtedly, and a quick call to LO, actually, a quick four calls, one voice mail and a text to LO, confirmed that she did not have her phone on her.  I rang her school, but that was engaged, so in panic, I decided to turn up at the hospital and hope that some divine intervention intervened.  She may not have been completely divine, but the nice lady on the main reception did have a computer and was able to look us up and, wonder of wonders, point us to the appropriate department.

A quick jog over to the other side of the hospital and we were presenting ourselves at the reception window.  As it turned out, we needn't have rushed since they were "running a bit late".  Nevertheless, we were out of there in under an hour and Maggot 2 was skipping along the main corridor in to his classroom twenty minutes later.

We do need to have one further follow up blood test, but all seems to be well, and very thankful are we in the Scobi household.

Monday 17 June 2013

Pain

Pain is something to which I am allergic, and unfortunately as the years pass I seem to have more and more little niggles with which to contend.  There is my lower back, caused mostly by living to sedentary a life, and there is my upper back, caused by my sedentary life, and there is my overall back that is caused by my sedentary life.  This is all well known by those in our circle, and of little consequence because:
  • I sit on my bum for a living
  • I do not do sufficient exercise
  • I am tall and I am getting on a bit
Some of this, as LO is oft to tell me, I could choose to do something about, however some of them are, in the words of Fletcher, an occupational hazard.  The mitigations are back exercises, standing up from time to time and getting off my fat @rse to do more sporting endeavours.  Time is, however, another unfortunately limited resource, and having a good excuse for every occasion is also in the mix.

Of late, I have been getting a new, more keenly felt pain, in my tooth.  The history of our dental provision is fairly checkered, with us having trouble finding a suitable National Health dentist for the Maggots, the elder who has OK teeth, the younger who does not.  This difficulty led us to what A&E call the best dentist in the area, and to get the Maggots with him meant LO and I going private.  This seemed OK since we have very little teeth problems.  Very little until we went private, that is.  Since going private a couple of years ago, we have had more treatment between us than in the previous ten years.

Anyhow, that is the history of dental provision.  My current pain is on a tooth where I have already had a filling replaced, which we thought was the cause of the pain.  It isn't, however I also had an x-ray and that did not reveal further decay or a crack in the tooth, however apparently cracks are very hard to see, so it may still be that.  This means I am faced with making an appointment for a checkup that will, inevitably, lead to expensive and painful remedial work.  I can sort of handle the pain to my wallet, but the pain to my head is something with which I really do struggle.  The cheapest option may well be to remove it, and while that is LO's worst nightmare, it is fairly well down my list, with the pain of any other of the options featuring higher in the list.

So, should I book an appointment or not.  Hmmm.  I will come back to you on that.

Friday 14 June 2013

And . . . relax



Another week passes by, in something of a blur if I am honest, which is something to do with the fact that it has been a long time since I have had a break, and just like a holiday seems to go faster the further through you go, so it is the same with periods of solid working.

Of course, that is a complete lie, because I spent a lovely 5 days in the Isle of Wight in half term, but for some reason that feels like a long time ago, just a distant memory. 



I actually think the reason I feel like it has been a long time is that I am actually very much looking forward to our big trip in the Summer.  It is quite an undertaking, but one that I am very much looking forward to.




For those who are interested, the above map shows our planned trip. 

This weekend we have the usual morning sporting activities for the Maggots, and in the afternoon we are going over to David and Samantha's for an afternoon and evening of fun - the girls will watch Les Mis while the rest of us will go down the beach, before we come together for a fish supper.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.