Test matching

Still waiting for my test results. More pain and fever. Angie dragged me off to my GP last Wednesday (?) who prescribed huge doses of painkillers and antibiotics. The fever finally began to subside yesterday, but the pain is still there. Now it has migrated round to my back as well and another point has blossomed which feels exactly like appendicitis should. What the hell is going on down there?

My head is foggy and I can’t concentrate properly. About all I’m managing is this stream of consciousness stuff for my blog. The day job has had to go by the by, and no work at all on any of the projects I should be devoting time and energy to.

My Doctor has told me to keep on with the pills and talk to him on Thursday if I’m not feeling much better. If I can remember. I’m having to rely on my mobile phone and bits of notepaper for a memory at the moment. A highly unsatisfactory state of affairs, even if I seem to be writing lucidly enough.

How do I feel? Irritated and tetchy. Frustrated at my inability to think straight for more than thirty seconds at a stretch. In the words of the prophet, “It’s just one damned thing after another.” I’ll be glad when this episode is all over.

The second test…..

Ended in a draw, as they say in cricketing circles. On Thursday I was purged and emptied until I was passing purer water than I was drinking from front and back. More regular than a good bus service, every half hour. It was four o’clock on Friday morning when I finally got a couple of hours sleep down on the front room floor.

Angie propped me up while we were sitting waiting for the tests with some women who were obviously veterans of the procedure. They were laughing and joking about an awful daytime TV show with ‘Celebrities’ visiting people in hospital. I can think of no worse fate than some crummy actor, hamming it up for the camera doing the ‘luvvy’ thing at me before buggering off. Personally, I’d be screaming for security before they got anywhere close. The consensus was to switch it over to where Paul Schofield and Ferne Britton were doing their innocuous chat and stuff morning show. Not that such programmes are much better, but at least you don’t have to put up with some non entity squealing pruriently for the camera at a rather unpleasant medical procedure.

The Colonoscopy went okay, as far as these things do, although watching a camera travelling up your large bowel is quite a psychologically unsettling experience. The inner surface of the large bowel has the colour and texture of worms skin, at least to my eyes. What with the sedatives I couldn’t feel a thing, and to be honest things were a bit foggy around the edges. As with all this type of memory, the best I can manage is flash cut sequences like lots of five second mpeg files jumbled together. I have problems keeping them in sequence as my mental referencing system shuttles back and forth faster than I can think.

Considering some of the things I’ve done to my digestive system during my often wayward life (Heavy duty Curries, other junk food, massive alcoholic self abuse) everything looked in remarkably good order to me. No polyps, nasty suspicious lumps or anything. However, the Consultant took five biopsies to look for ‘micro’ something or other which he said could mimic the symptoms I’ve been experiencing.
I
t could of course be that my symptoms just mimic bowel problems. I’ll just have to wait for the next test. Whatever that turns out to be.

Unpleasant experiences part 1

I don’t think I’ll ever be gay; especially after the unpleasant experience of having a Sigmoidoscope rammed up the place where the sun shineth not and wiggled around this morning. If this is some people’s idea of sex they’re welcome to it. More tests to come and a Colonoscopy scheduled for next Friday. I’ll say this for the hospitals – when they do get round to lumbering into action they shift very quickly indeed.

I’ve been reading the preparation sheets which would bring a smile to the face of Torquemada. The day before I’ve got to start purging my system with a very nasty cocktail of colonic clearance agents. That promises to keep me away from the keyboard and studying the bathrooms décor for long periods. Must leave a book or two up there and check my mp3 players content. It’s going to be a long 48 hours

Bless Angie, she’s my rock, my haven and my shield in these difficult time. If it all goes pear shaped I won’t forget to tell her she’s what's kept me sane. It can’t be too wonderful for her, but with her help and the surgeons I’ll be okay. There is a school of thought that states; what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That being the case; at this rate I’ll be able to bend iron bars around my psyche.

Illness tracking

Took today off sick as my bowels have been playing up. Constipation is followed by flatus and I find myself going back and forth to the toilet every twenty minutes or so. Almost like a hiccupping gastro colonic reflex. My knee needed a rest as well. All that walking is definitely taking its toll.

17:09 21/09/06
The sensation of pressure and discomfort in my lower right abdomen is now more or less continuous. I feel hot and sweaty every time I eat or drink. Sitting up is decidedly uncomfortable and I get referred discomfort (Not quite painful but almost so) in my lower right iliac fossa (Lower right abdomen, just inside the pelvis). Like a balloon swelling at one end when you push on the other. Very difficult to get comfortable.

18:40 21/09/06<
Had a light supper of a small portion of broccoli and potato bake earlier on which has helped to settle my digestion a little. My digestive system seems to be hyperactive and making more gurgling noises than a mad scientists chemistry set. Discomfort has eased slightly. I don’t know whether it’s the food or the lying down that has quieted matters down. Next Friday and my hospital appointment can't come soon enough for me. Will try a little yoghurt to see if that helps.

All I have of my father

My father died over twenty five years ago. Yesterday my mother gave me his medals. Nothing much, just three World War 2 campaign stars and a 1939-45 good conduct medal. The stuff most surviving servicemen came home with in the late 1940’s.

A legacy of Gibraltar and Malta Convoy escorts, Anzio, Palermo, Normandy (Juno Beach) and the Far East just at the end of hostilities, repatriating POW’s. He wasn’t a hero, just one of the cast of thousands that made it happen; working as a signalman and ‘bunting-tosser’ on Minesweepers and Tank Landing Craft. He was not a veteran of any great sea battles, or winner of a higher award like a DSO like my late Father in Law. Just one of the many young men of his era who volunteered for the Navy instead of waiting to be drafted.

I cleaned his medals and will cherish them.

Angie commented that this was a large gesture on my mothers part. This is true. My side of the clan are hardly what you might call demonstrative. Not closed in or anal, but extremely careful about what they say and do. Not for them the grandiloquent, expressive gestures of love or accentuated emotion, but the small, often offhand and understated gesture of trust that connects from the hand to the soul.

My status in my family just went up a notch.

I feel quite proud. Thank you mum.

Doing favours for friends

An unnamed friend of mine who writes quite a successful blog rang me up almost two weeks ago “Martyn, can you do me a favour?”
“What sort of favour?” I’m not one of natures least suspicious people.
“Can you take a delivery for me?”
“What sort of delivery?”
“I’ve been contacted by a production company, can you take delivery of anything they want to send me at your house, seeing as you’re off sick with that leg of yours.”
"This isn’t anything illegal is it?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you."
"You sure?"
"I’m just a bit worried that they might try and trace me. It’s to do with my weblog, you know the one - about my job?”
“Okay, so long as camera crews and hordes of tabloid journalists aren’t going to end up camping on my doorstep.” His weblog has had several mentions in the mainstream press, and I know the sneaky dog is angling for a book deal whilst desperately trying not to get fired from his day job. He wants to have his cake and eat it. Personally I think it's a waste of time. Who'd want to buy a book about his job?

A week passed and I phoned him myself, I was getting rather fed up of hanging around every morning for this non existent delivery. Angie and I wanted to get away for a couple days more this summer.
“Are these guys on the level?” I asked.
He replied, “I think so. They’re talking about an interview.”
“And you want to stay anonymous?”
“Well yes, you know what my Managers are like. I’d be fired faster than a bullet.” For all my friends faults, he does have a nice turn of phrase.
“Drop it. Drop it like a hot rock.” I advised. The boy is a fool unto himself if he can’t see the risk.
“You really think so?”
"If these guys were for real this recording kit would be already here and you’d have already done the first recording.” An idea occurred to me. “Are they trying to get you to go to a face to face interview?”
“Well, yes. Four podcasts and an interview.”
“And all of a sudden all they seem to want is an interview?”
“Right.”
“Well then?” My proof dear Watson.
“Fuck.” The penny dropped resoundingly.
"See what I mean?"
“Cheers Mart. I owe you one.”

Stupid boy. Sergeant Wilson, take that mans name.

As for myself, I am off sick again with painkiller reaction. My bowels have turned to water and although I don’t feel feverish or nauseous, I’ve got a bad case of the gripes. This is ridiculous. I can barely leave the bathroom, let alone the house.

Must put a positive face on this; use the time off sick to complete my current novel and try and sell the bloody thing. Once I can get away from the blasted lavatory.

Painkiller reaction

Definitely under the weather this morning. Yesterday I think I must have eaten too many painkillers. A sensation of thick headedness pervades the interior of my capacious skull this morning coupled with a desperate need to be within ten feet of a lavatory.

The trouble is that the pain in my left knee goes straight through regular doses of paracetomol and ibuprofen, so not unnaturally I have been pushing maximum dosage. Well the birds have come home to roost on that one. Serve me right for pushing to get back to my day job before I was all properly healed.

Global Gathering

Saturday night, and Laura my eldest stepdaughter has gone to the ‘Global Gathering’ down at Long Marston which is six miles away as the crow flies.

Around about eight, I stepped back from the keyboard wondering which brain dead (And apparently deaf) bozo had parked in the street with their boom box on full.
“There’s a noisy sod out there.” I said, ready to go out and see what the fuss was.
“I think you’d better come to the back door.” Angie told me.

As I stepped into the kitchen I could hear it more clearly. Not just the ‘Thud, thud, thud' of the back beat, but some of what passed for the melody. Upon opening the double glazed back door I was amazed. Well bust my britches if we couldn’t hear the party as though it were only in the next street.

Several wisecracks passed between Angie and myself about what might be the state of Laura’s hearing on the following day. “We could always mime at her to make her think she’s gone deaf.” Suggested Joanna, youngest and cheekiest of our two. I’ve got a real soft spot for Jo when she isn’t pulling a teenage mardy on me but she will do well enough. Life will knock a few of the corners off her, but doesn’t that happen to us all? Let her enjoy it while she can.

Salisbury day out

Recently Angie and I took advantage of a midweek hotel deal in Salisbury, two nights for £98 for two including breakfast at a Swallow hotel, The Rose & Crown, an old Coaching Inn.

Regrettably the trip did not start well. Angie was repeatedly sick before we’d even got to Stow on the Wold and stopped us ever ten minutes to throw up which seriously marred the trip down. At one point I got so fed up with her that I threatened to leave the car with her and hitch hike home, or walk. I would have too. Quite frankly I didn’t care which I was so damned angry at her for not at least trying to sort herself out. All my bluster and bullshit was to no end so I just sat and did my ‘Guard dog’ routine while she slept it off. I also wandered off into the touristy limestone charm of Burford for a while and bought her a pack of Rennies to soothe her obviously acid stomach. At half past three she could stand, and at about four thirty we were ready to move. All of the rest of the way to Salisbury I have never driven so carefully, just to avoid upsetting her. A routine two hour trip from Stratford ended up taking almost nine hours. No matter, we got there in the end.

Finding the Rose & Crown wasn’t that difficult, although it is tucked around the back of the Cathedral Close. Much of the hotel building itself dates from 13th Century and from inside looks to have been designed by a medieval committee when the ale was flowing freely. There are some splendidly detailed carved doors and details which are a whole blog entry in themselves. Regrettably I didn’t take any photographs, but they are splendidly gothic.

As for our room, I could sit here behind my keyboard and nitpick at minor things like frayed bedspreads, no air conditioning, no Wi-Fi or broadband and the humid and occasionally thundery weather, but tell you the truth we had a very pleasant time of it. The room was large, en suite bathroom clean and spacious, more reminiscent of American room sizes than English. Ten TV channels on a newish set so you could keep up with the news if you really wanted to.

The biggest plus point for me was the chalk stream running right outside the hotels restaurant where trout as long as my forearm swim in perfectly transparent water. Each of the two days we stayed was full of little surprises. For example, feeding the ducks after breakfast was not without its amusements. A little Mallard cross duck comically begging at my heels like a puppy for cold toast, a family of Swans, Moorhen, and a host of teal and mallard all obviously used to getting their breakfast leftovers.

Less than three hundred metres away across the water meadows on the rivers far bank is the beautifully engineered spire of Salisbury Cathedral. Inside the visitor centre (£4 donation / admission) are models and photographs of the whole construction. My only comment is that the people who designed the hexagonal internal wooden bracing inside the spire really understood diagrams of forces. The Cathedral itself is a gothic marvel constantly under restoration and is home to one of the best preserved originals of Magna Carta, a surprisingly small and unadorned piece of vellum covered in still legible church Latin. Photography sadly, is not allowed because the flashes may degrade the document and since it appears to be currently whole and complete any such damage might be unforgivable to such a fundamental document.

Other places worth a look around the Cathedral close include the Salisbury and South Wiltshire and Wiltshire Regiment Museums. A couple of pieces of statuary in the close are worth a look; the Walking Madonna, a representation in bronze of a ghost allegedly seen walking the close grounds at night, the left hand of which is polished by people shaking hands with the statue for good luck. The second is a metre and a half diameter disk of polished Onyx set on its edge in a steel plinth.

Salisbury as a town is packed with architectural gems from detailed carved weatherboards to the gothic market cross at the junction of Minster and Silver Street. The one way system is difficult to navigate and the parking rigorously enforced, so the best way to get around is on foot. Use the out of town Park and ride or leave the car in your hotel car park and walk. A wide variety of coffee shops and restaurants make for frequent easy stops, but the only Wireless Internet access point appears to be at the local Starbucks in Silver Street.

As regards other points of interest, you could try Fisherton Mill off Fisherton Street and watch local artists and sculptors at work. You could even simply laze around in one of the towns parks and sit by the one of the network of chalk streams that give the town so much of its character.

Talking of restaurants; if you like Italian food, try the Prezzo in High Street. The food was superb, the staff attentive, cheerful and mostly Italian (Well they sound Italian) and the prices reasonable. Well worth a visit for dilettante diners like myself. The heritage setting does have its downside, as the upper dining floors are rather uneven and the only way to stop your table wobbling violently is to stuff a strategically folded napkin under one or more of the table feet. Despite that, I would happily dine there regularly, if my only waistline could stand the strain.

Overall verdict; Nice town, with a little something for everyone. Clean, plenty of green space, heritage, food, places to relax and party. I like it. I think I’ll move.

The best kept secret on the Internet

First entry on this particular weblog. The title of this entry, and the blog itself requires a little explanation.

I’m a freelance Writer and occasional IT Engineer specialising in Installation and Support up to 3rd line. My career to date has been pretty patchy, but I’ve done good work for various clients over the past ten years as a freelancer, even if the money hasn’t been spectacular. If you’re an Engineer you’ll know these; Rescuing projects that almost had the skids under them and bringing them in on deadline, coming up with answers when the rest of the support crew were clutching at straws, that sort of thing. Not to mention improving system documentation and writing the odd online in house IT orientation course.

I’ve built a number of websites with particular emphasis on Search Engine Optimization (Or Optimisation if you have a UK spellchecker) and written a few IT related articles which were buried in some mid 1990’s trade publications. Even appeared on local radio a couple of times. Funnily enough, in 1996 I wrote a 2000 word article entitled ‘Cybermarket – the future of retailing?’ which outlined how Supermarkets might use the Internet and outlined where such a Business plan might lead – like selling financial services etc. Looks like a few other people had similar ideas around the same time. The piece, like a lot of my stuff that went into trade publications around that time has sunk without trace. 'Cybermarket' was last seen on a 3.5” floppy disk which is somewhere in my archives. Never mind, that was in the deep dark days of dial–up and the notorious ‘World Wide Wait’.

Despite all my hard work; fame and fortune (Or even a steady income) have yet to come knocking on my particular lichen encrusted front door. Hence the title; ‘The best kept secret on the Internet’. That’s me. It has a certain ring to it. May that ring prove to be rich in irony.

E-mail me at martynkjones at gmail.com, or when I'm on Skype you can call me. I may be able to amuse you.