I ATEN'T DED

As Granny Weatherwax is prone to declare.

I went on a holiday and then, when I returned, my back finally gave up. The first week I also had a lot of pain in my hip although that has mostly now gone. Two visits to the pain clinic have also improved me somewhat and I am aiming for a partial permanent return to work soon. Life over the past couple of weeks has been both painful and boring but is now beginning to even out again.

I have been so tied up recently,

I even missed the rollover to less than 300 days to my retirement. A sad indictment of my life at present. The family is managing to cope with the health problems that most of us have but it's been touch and go a few times. We have managed to keep a lot of the problems away from the children but, inevitably, there has been some disruption for both boys because of the chaos we adults have had to wade through. The worst problems have been the fault of mistakes by and lack of interest from the health service. The local hospital seems to have been on a permanent 'Black Alert' for at least a month and even when a bed was made available, there was very little care provided for a very sick young lady. More than one operation went wrong and nursing staff have failed to offer even the most basic care at times. The best quote being, "We didn't have time to deal with her". Our problems are still not over as Lulu still needs care at home and, despite two assurances that it had been done, no visiting nurse had been booked. The next concern is when Wendy has her operation next week. The up side has been my visit to the pain clinic. Very helpful staff and a doctor who had actually read my notes. I received some very helpful advice and the promise of some therapy in the near future. The advice was to buy and use a TENS unit and it has already, in a very short space of time, made a substantial difference to the amount of pain I am in. By that, I mean it has diminished.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho etc.

Regular readers will know by now that a severe lack of posts usually indicates that I am very busy at work.

Well, last week, this was true with knobs on! I haven't had any time to myself either at work or at home.The new job was always going to take a lot of time but last week was the first week of a new term and that really ramps up the support calls. For three days, we couldn't get them below 100 emails waiting. As soon as we cleared one,another or two arrived. By Thursday, we began to make an impression and by Friday we had got it down to a dull roar of just over 30. Of course, whilst all this was going on, we were also answering phone calls and logging them as well.

At home, Lulu went in for her operation on Thursday morning and we have been looking after Corey pretty much full time since then. Glad to be of help but last night I was so tired I wanted a lie in today. I didn't get one as I had to take Ian up tothe hospital at ten to see Lulu.

The end of an era

Today is my last day in the Smeaton node as far as I know. On Monday I move back to Babbage and go on first line support. I took Alan, my replacement, around the building to introduce him to people only to find that most people aren't in their offices today for one reason or another. Still, he does at least know where most areas are now. My health continues to improve very slowly although I am having some 'withdrawal' symptoms without any changes to my medication. It has been so obvious to me that I have double checked my tablets and eye drops and everything is correct.

The TagBots are coming along very well now, I am learning more and more C programming with each session. The other blog is definitely worth a visit if you have any interest in robotics. 

It's probably tempting fate, but......................

I seem to be getting better at the moment. My heels are much less painful and my back has stopped hurting 24/7. The problem with my feet was probably always going to improve and I am wondering now whether that was what kicked off the pain in my back. It's not totally ok yet but each week sees a small improvement so we shall see. By the time I get to the pain clinic, I probably won't need it anymore, with any luck.

Today is a fairly happy day. My general health, a good friend has had some very good news and had a load taken off and I have also now finished the design of my next robot chassis. The three aren't equal, you understand, but added together they make for a very good day.

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning,

and now I wish I hadn't.

Some days, you just can't even come in second. I went through the outstanding logs first thing and grabbed two that seemed ripe for my specialised knowledge of SharePoint. Did some research and came up with the answers only to find the two users are not at their desks and I will now have to wait until they respond to the emails I have sent. Next I was reliably informed that, when I move over to Babbage next weekend, I will have to take the whole kit with me as we don't have enough to warrant leaving it and just picking up a different set over there. Why did they insist we had slow laptops when we still have to cart all that gubbins around with us anyway? This isn't just the left and right hands, it's individual fingers not knowing what's going on as well. I keep looking at the days left at the top of the page and wishing my life away - which is wrong and I shouldn't be doing it at my age either. All I wanted was a nice easy ride into retirement doing the job I love and someone, somewhere is fouling it up on a grand scale. sigh!

A pox upon your chickens sirrah!

Poor little Corey didn't even play with any poxy chickens and he's ended up looking like Spotty Muldoon.

The scratchfulness is terrific and makes him a right miserable Les at times. Four for the price of one, work 'em out yourselves.

Well, it came and went. The long Easter weekend, I mean. We had a, generally, quiet time with only Monday having any family time. I spent some time working on the Bluetooth boards that arrived on Saturday and got them working well. All I have to do now is persuade the software I'm writing to do the same. Three boys and a dog yesterday, all but the dog wanted to play games on the wii u. Should have let the dog play, he would probably have been better than me.......................

The other pleasant thing this weekend was the start of two weeks of 'Sky Arts Rieu'. A 24/7 extravaganza of the famed violinist and orchestra leader and his team. Fascinating stuff and amazing music.

And, did you see the new Jonathan Creek last evening? Very dark indeed.