Woe is Me

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

That was a title from a Helen Shapiro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Shapiro) song from 1963 and pretty much sums up how I feel today. Let me tell you about it - but stop here if you get bored easily or can't stand the sound of constant whining.

As they say in all the best blues songs, well, I woke up this morning - that was a good start anyway - another day on this planet - number 22,473 to be exact. It was my usual waking time of 5:15 am, but I decided to roll over for a bit and try and get another half hour or so of shuteye. I don't bother with alarms nowadays - my body clock does the trick.

Anyway, next thing I hear is Jo's phone making noises - she'd forgotten to switch it off. It was 6:15 am anyway - definitely time to get up. "Who is it?" said I. "Oh, it's just Mary". "Why is she texting at this time?" "Just saying good morning".

Our next conversation is after I've had breakfast and brought Jo's coffee up. There had been further exchanges of texts. "Mary says it's not looking good for tomorrow". For an instant I thought they might have been thinking about poor me heading over to the West Coast for our walk on the West Highland Way, but, no - silly me - it's the Pope's visit tomorrow and Mary is singing in the choir - outdoors.

I expressed my slight disappointment and was promptly told - "Oh, I'm not feeling sorry for you - you chose to go on this walk" - "and Mary volunteered for the choir" quoth I. Even less sympathy after this remark. What a caring and sharing relationship we have.

What else is bugging me? - firstly, the dentist yesterday. She X-rayed my gum to check out the lump that had appeared. "Oh, dear", she says - "come and look at this". The tooth underneath the lump had been root canal filled many years ago and it looked like the amalgam at the end of the root had moved and it was this that was causing the lump in my gum.

"You'll have to see the oral surgeon" she says. There are only 2 possible solutions - he can either cut a flap in the gum and see if he can fix it that way, but my dentist believes it's most likely that the eye tooth will have to come out and it will have to be an implant to replace it. She quickly muttered something about a cost of £1,900 - surprisingly, I didn't faint.

The oral surgeon only works on Wednesday afternoons and he's not available until 29th September, so that's when I'm seeing him - just 2 days before my knee ops, which, in turn, is 3 days before I see my cardiologist again.

When you're young, you think you're invincible, but when your body starts letting you down like this, mortality becomes a stark reality.

Are you still with me, or have you given up on this depressing tale?

Tuesday night meant Luca for tea as usual, but, with the twin treats of cartoons on a giant TV and Grannie Jo, do I even get a hello from the little man? Not likely.

When Jo took Luca home, Colin came round to watch the Man U - Rangers match. We finished off the last couple of bottles of Nechtan (my birthday ale) but the match was goal-less - pretty disappointing.

When Jo started a bit of a clear-out last week in an effort to unclutter the house a little, I was faced with some tough decisions. My pile of old 45's was an issue - "what shall we do with them?". Knowing I had to make a contribution, and aware that I've still got all my vinyl LP's and back copies of Mojo lying around, I had little option but to say "dump them" - but, boy, did I choke on the words. That's my life history and many memories of youth - when my body still worked - going out the door.

There's still the question of the many souvenir beer glasses, mostly from CAMRA festivals. They've been boxed, but where do we put them? Is there a good home out there for some or all of them?

Moving on, I finished one of the books I bought in USA earlier this year - Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape. Rather poignant, I thought, but it read well. I've now finally started reading The Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S_Thompson), who was a bit of a maverick. I'll see how I get on with this one.

To finish with - a modern moral dilemma. I got my tax assessment in last week. They had worked out that I was due a refund of over £7K for last year - what? They've even since paid it directly in to my bank account. Coming at the time when there's all this publicity about the Revenue issuing error notices to virtually half the population of the UK - and refusing initially to apologise for them - it's left me wondering how to handle this. I know they have miscalculated - they have missed a chunk of my income (I get paid by two separate companies). I know what I'll do in the end - I have to write and tell them - but part of me wants to ignore their error until they discover it themselves.

So, that's it from me for now. My next posting on this blog is likely to be next week. I'll probably update my hill-walking blog with photos from the WHW first of all next Tuesday/Wednesday. Wish me luck - hope my cardio system can get me up some of the climbs.

Morrissey

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

• I've just returned from seeing the dental hygienist and have to go back tomorrow to see the dentist - I've got a lump in my gum - I first noticed it on Thursday and thought it might be an abscess so I phoned the dentist on Friday to get their emergency number in case it flared up over the weekend. It's actually receded a little, and the hygienist assures me that it therefore can't be an abscess, but she can't do anything with it - I have to come back and see my dentist and get it X-rayed tomorrow.
• It's dark and wet outside my office today.
• The Dons and the Jags both got beaten on Saturday

Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

Getting everything ready for our trek this week. We leave on Thursday afternoon and return on Monday. I do hope the weather on the latter part of the West Highland Way is a bit better than it is here today.

Hope you're all having a better start to the week than me.