Tag Archives: temperature

Too Cold to Work

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It’s been a bit chilly this afternoon, so I spent it in front of the fire in the front room. Winter, I’m afraid, tends to depress my productivity. I have up to ten submissions to make this month and so far I’ve not made much impact. Being laid up for two weeks with the infection took some of the wind out of my sails and laziness did the rest. Really, I should be doing better than this and getting ahead.

I’ve had several bits published, including this. I’m near the foot of the list of contributors and you  can click the Simon Wilson link, or you can scroll down to page 53. I’ve also had a magazine with me in it, but no internet version. As usual I will let them have it for a month or so before quoting the poems. Or I may just forget about them – they are only average. The one I’ve supplied the link for is only average too, so don’t get your hopes up – just another tale of middle aged people (who am I kidding? we are elderly people) emptying out a garage (which, to be fair, is more a plan than an actual achievement).

Some people get out into nature, or world events. I write poems that take place in my back garden. I could probably produce a chapbook of poems from the garden.

A new book arrived today, which I am enjoying. I’m reading bits at random – it’s not the sort of book to go from beginning to end. It’s the Oxford Dictionary of Allusions in case you are wondering – a book of limited interest to most people, I admit.

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Razors, Lies and Misadventures

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Contrary to my gloomy predictions, I didn’t sever an ear, so mentions of van Gogh proved to be premature. However, I did spend several minutes trying to shave my head without producing much result. A moment’s thought revealed the cause for the lack of progress – I’d neglected to remove the clear plastic safety guard. Well, it’s a very small, clear plastic guard, and I was tired.

I’ve had a variety of problems with razors, apart from stupidity. The main one is theft.  Even the most respectable people seem prone to criminality when faced by a bag of razors.

I the early days of our marriage I used to employ a razor once every couple of months to tidy up the edges of my beard. I would return to it periodically and always find it clogged with dark hairs and congealed shaving foam. This was strange, as I always clean my razor after use and have never had dark hair.

Julia, who I will characterise as a dark-haired woman with beautifully smooth legs for the purposes of this story, always denied any knowledge of how this happened.

For the last twenty years I haven’t bothered with tidying the beard, but I have shaved my head from time to time. I would have shaved it more but I never seem to have a razor when I need one.

The normal scenario for that was that I would decide to shave my head and find no trace of my razors, despite buying a bag of razors and using only one or two.

Further enquiries, including interrogating Julia and the boys resulted in no useful information. Either my two smooth-cheeked sons and my smooth-legged wife were part of a web of deceit regarding the theft of my razors or, more likely,  a local cat burglar was targeting my razors.

Obviously this seems unlikely but, as Sherlock Holmes pointed out “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

As a note for future generations, the car thermometer was reading 38.5 degrees C tonight on the way home. This is 101.3 degrees F. Julia recorded the same temperature in the gardens. This is hot for the UK. I wonder if someone, reading this in twenty years, will laugh ironically at the thought of this being hot.

At least, with no hair and a drastically trimmed beard, I felt more comfortable than I have done on previous days.

More Medical Details

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Well, life never loses its capacity for surprise, does it?

As I mentioned yesterday, I have a swollen foot and difficulty in walking. What I didn’t mention was that when I went to bed last night it involved a major effort and a lot of pain. Even after a night spent with the leg elevated, things were not much improved by morning.

In the end I rang the doctor for advice early this afternoon, as I really was feeling quite rough. It’s not a pleasant feeling to think your body is breaking down to the extent that even sitting down upsets your capacity to function normally.

The doctor’s advice was that I should go down to the surgery quite quickly so they could prod me about. I was feeling so weak that I didn’t even argue.

It seems that my self-diagnosis was incorrect. I don’t have a swollen foot due to poor circulation, I have a swollen foot because I have an infection.  It seems that as the previous antibiotics sorted out the other infection (in a laudably selective manner) another infection was gathering in my foot. That is the cause of the swelling and the pain. It’s also the reason that it isn’t going down despite me doing all the right things.

I had an interesting temperature when the doctor checked. It was nearly 39 degrees, against a desirable level of 37 – 37.5. He’s quite keen me getting it down, as at 40 it’s officially “life-threatening”, which is, apparently, a bad thing. He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed, but as signs of having mild fever include feeling hungry and thirsty I don’t really know how I’m expected to separate this from my normal state of feeling hungry and thirsty.

We are currently monitoring my temperature with a thermometer that’s left over from my time as an antique dealer. It;s old, but it still works, and my temperature is falling.

I’m happy now.

With any luck I might start to become interesting again.

You never know…