And then the next day

Yesterday, to get out of the house, we went to the Botanics. Its less than 2 miles away by bike, and all on the flat, so it didn't seem like pushing it too much. I felt pretty strange on the bike. My speedometer packed up recently and I haven't got round to trying to fix it, which was probably a good thing, because I was not going fast.

It was about minus two and very windless. There were very few visitors to the Botanics, mostly staff. Peter wanted to stop and photograph everything and I wanted to keep moving, albeit slowly, so as not to freeze to the spot. We went into Inverleith House to see a strange and sparse exhibition by "Andy Hope 1930", some german guy who had apparently spent last summer in the glass houses amongst the prehistoric ferns and now intuitively knew how it felt in the dinosaur era. Some of the pictures were quite funny, but mostly it all seemed rather hopeless and scrappy and I was trying to hide from the curators the fact that I was just there to sit on the radiators. I think they knew though. For most of the time we were in there there was a one to one visitor to curator ratio. Not really a comfortable arrangement.

In the basement Andy Hope 1930 had put on a "film" so that when you looked through some slits in a cardboard box you could see the silhouettes of plastic dinosaurs with a flashing pink light behind them. There was a greasy stain on the cardboard where all the noses and brows had touched.

That was enough excitement for me and I cycled home while Peter stayed to feed the ducks. Then I took to lying on the sofa in a sleeping bag watching the telly - the ultimate refuge.

I'm feeling better today. Not so hypochondriachal. I felt like something was leaning on my chest yesterday, and today its still there a bit, but not so oppressive. Because I have to take tablets to keep my blood slippy so I don't throw a clot inside, the wound on my leg where the catheters went into my femoral vein starts bleeding again really easily. Its all just a bit sick. And I have no running to distract me. I'm not looking forwards to going back to work tomorrow but it'll probably be a good distraction. Its just half a day, and half a day on Friday so should be doable. Then on Saturday maybe I'll try a tiny run if my leg has stopped bleeding.