Well. I have been away for some time - I hope you're still checking my pulse now and then.
I've been over on flickr, which is lots of fun. The combination of a new camera, broadband and flickr has been addictive - in fact I've decided to limit the amount of time I spend online.
In other news ...
I have a new back gate and fence. I'd accepted the quote I had (plus an extra £20 for a bit more height) and I had a call at 10:15pm one night asking if it was ok if they came the next day. And they did! I raced out before they arrived and took the canes down from around my "veg garden" (aka patch of weeds).
The team of two blokes started with the gate - within a few minutes they had demolished the old one and set up new posts.
Then they went off for "breakfast" before coming back to hang the new gate, take down the bamboo curtain and put in fence posts. After coffee and biscuits they got stuck in to fencing proper. One of them had a nail gun, so the whole thing went up incredibly fast. They didn't do too much damage, just broke some branches off a gooseberry bush and a blackcurrant.
That was a Thursday. I spent the entire weekend, Saturday and Sunday, coating the fence in wood preservative. Very messy stuff, runny and bright orange. Saturday I did the gate and panel, both sides, and nearly all of my side of the fence. Then on Sunday I went next door and cut out the old wire fence (which Frances tells me was put up by Mrs Blacker's son, the builder), chopped out the weeds and grass that was growing under it and painted the rest. I had felt I was more than halfway, but I hadn't counted on how bloody long it would take to paint the inner edges of the planks. It was agonising! But so worth the effort.
My other news is that I've been officially diagnosed as having mild to moderate arthritis in both my knees. I knew that already, but had an X-ray to confirm. It's been quite depressing over the past couple of years, the deterioration and pain. I've had to give up sailing - I'm not nimble enough any more, and any kneeling at all, even just briefly, leaves me in bad pain for up to a week. And I've been wimpish about hillwalking too - it's so painful going downhill! So I've put on weight, which has in turn put more pressure on my knees.
At about this time, the Guardian published an article by the late Andrea Dworkin about her arthritic knees. What struck me about it was how relentlessly negative she was, and how passive. She didn't appear to have done anything positive herself about her condition - losing weight, for example, or investigating alternative remedies. I've tried various things - cutting out fruit juice has helped, oddly enough, and glucosamine is good too - and of course I've surfed the net for ideas.
All this came together in the decision to lose weight by getting more exercise. I hate dieting - it's boring and makes me obsess about food - and I want to build my muscle strength back up. I called the nearest gym and they said to get the doctor to refer me - it's cheaper. So I did that and my first session is Thursday.
Yesterday I went out and bought a pair of sneakers - it's that long since I went to the gym! It was hilarious - sneakers are so ugly now! And wildly expensive. I always used to get plain white Reeboks - but the style that I like is only for kids now, so I had to settle for a horrible-looking 70s-style pair, the plainest I could find. Oh well, they were cheap.
Also on Thursday is the election, and I'm doing a special late-late shift, 9pm to 6am. What fun! Yes really! Working election night is always a buzz - it's exciting when it's close and you're waiting for the next result to come in, and the next and the next. Labour is going to get a pasting but will probably still get in. I don't agree with all they've done, especially over the war, but the Tories would be a disaster. I've been hating their campaign - banging on about immigration as though it's a bad thing. Pah!
So I work to 6am on Friday, then 4pm to 1am, then on Saturday I drive across the country to Kilmartin. Yup, a long weekend has lured me out onto the road. I'm having a couple of days in Kilmartin, Argyll, then off to Oban to visit Kate, Robbie and wee Calum, then straight up the Great Glen to Inverness and Wester Barevan. I'm there for just a couple of nights.
Right now I'm off home. I'll put some pics in later on.
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