August

 

Well here we are again. Can you believe it? Of course you can. I just read 'July'. It is pretty bad. I'm blanding myself out. I'm just trying to keep all my monkeys in the circus until I leave work. It's not easy. Quite frankly, my monkeys are going a bit mental.

I didn't really take my good camera out in August, I'm not sure why. Too much lumping things around. All that heat. Couldn't be bothered with anything.

I haven't got much to say about running except I still do it. I've been feeling a bit shit so I've been going easy - not pushing. Maybe I've got long Covid, or tall or small or short Covid, or none of the above, or maybe I'm a wee bit tired.

I'll tell you about my frozen shoulder if you like; the potted version. Shoulder no functiona  since March at least. No worky. No bueno. Round about June I thought maybe I should do something about it so I did a lot of googling, got some theories, got some youtube videos, read peoples' opinions, got some books, did some exercises. Sometimes I hurt it. Sometimes I left it alone.

Last Saturday night it was keeping me awake in the middle of the night so I made an appointment to see a physio. The wonders of technology. I had buyer's regret the very next day because if there's one thing tighter than my shoulder capsule it's ...ah...me! That's my first ever frozen shoulder joke. Did you like it?

Anyway, I went to see Lianne Brunton at Balanced Physiotherapy today and she was bloody marvelous. Knew her stuff. Apparently ladies of a certain age are very prone to a frozen shoulder, they're not exactly sure why. There's been some research done. It can stay for a year and a half. It can go away on its own. Sometimes it doesn't go away.

I have an option, which would be to get saline injected into the joint to create space again, followed by a wee snifter of Cortisone, and then it would be free and pain-free and me and Lianne could get down to business and do some serious rehab. I wasn't keen on this idea at first but actually it's growing on me. I've got some exercises to do to see if I can get it to improve on my own and I'm going to give myself at  least a week to think about it, but...I'm kind of longing to have old Sammy the Shoulder back in the game. I'll need to go private and I can have it done in Edinburgh for too much money or I can have it done in Falkirk for half the price. Guess what I'm leaning towards.

Somebody in Leith would probably do it for a good bit less. Lol. That was a joke.

Damn it, when I get my shoulder back operational I'm going to make it beeg like Rocky!!!

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That's your lot with the FS for now.

I should tell you about the pandemic and all that for history and everything.  Well most of England is squeezed into Edinburgh at the moment and I'm finding it a bit of a tight fit. Everybody's now out rubbing themselves all over each other as you know. Nicola's said 'try not to' but without much conviction. Are the infections up or is it just that more people are getting tested? It seems like there are really more because Peter's brother's family came down with the Covid and so did my sister and her family over in the West. They're all recovering, which is good, but they said it wasn't nice, and they're all double jabbers.

The death rates went up, but I notice this week they seem to be down again. What's going to happen? Nobody knows do they? Meantime, the climate has been catching everyone's attention by laying on some spectacular floods'n'stuff. I'm finding it refreshing not to have someone called Donald trying to make out there's no problem. I don't think there's anyone left saying there's no problem. 

That's enough World Affairs.

I'm away to get my tea.

July

 

Life has been busy but I'm still not sure how more than a month went by! Getting ready to leave my job is taking a lot of thought and planning and leaving the NHS after being there for 19 years brings up many memories and feelings. There has been so much colour and drama and most of it I can't talk about or only with care because it's not just my business, it's other people's.

We had our first holiday in a long time. Well Peter's life is a holiday but what I mean is we actually went somewhere together. The Berlingo had made it through another MOT - not without a fair amount of work, but I honestly thought it would be worse than it was - and it drove better when I got it back than it has for months. Maybe 6 months.  We headed west to see my sister. Looking at old photos I think it's possible that I've not been across since 2009. Where did all that time go? My nephew Donald has sprung up from thigh height to much bigger than me, and full of fun. The younger one, Sorley, was monosyllabic. I didn't like visitors in the house when I was young either. I do want to know what's going on in that young mind but you can't force these things.

How far do you think I ran while I was away? 3 miles. Well it's been so hot and I had a bit of a heel injury. Why push and push and push for nothing? I think too much computer time is taking a toll on me. I've had a sore shoulder for months now and I finally thought I should do something about it. I came across Pete Egoscue and his books somewhere. He says we all have terrible posture and that's what eventually causes our chronic joint and back problems. It doesn't start out that way. We build a fantastic core by crawling and learning to raise our heads and turn over  and eventually getting onto our feet - but after that the rot sets in. We sit around on our arses and we don't challenge ourselves and we get all out of kilter and sooner or later something must go. I've been doing his exercises for shoulders out of one of his books - it might be Free yourself from Chronic Pain - and I still have some of the pain, but it's much better. 

His wider message is that we need to use our bodies - if we don't, we'll lose function. I try to get by on running but I don't do much else! I was better when I worked in the hospital because I had to run around all day and move things and make beds and all that, but much of my work now is sitting at a desk, more so since the pandemic. Working from home I'd nearly stopped cycling at all. And I hardly walk anywhere. So at the moment I'm making an effort to re-engage with the world physically.

Maybe I'll write my blog more. I've been missing it. The trouble is, so many things build up that there's too much to say so you end up saying nothing. Nice to see you anyway. I'll try and write more in August.

Rest of June!

 Hold onto your hats because July will be here before you know it! :-)

I thought I'd already put up this slideshow for June.

It's so class. I've just been watching again.