Tennis update +

What a disappointment! Andy Murray didn't play well and, in my view, lost it because his serve was completely off. At one stage the only thing he was ahead in score wise was that he had more double faults than Novak Djokovic. Not a way to win a grand slam.

I'm now getting my gear ready to go to London for 5 days... I'm going to have to think about what to take as usually I only go for a couple of days and my lovely small travel bag is rarely full, but 5 days means it'll probably be crammed. I've got business meetings, drinks meetings, friends and theatre to cater for so will need a fairly wide range of clothing. Oh the dilemma! Still at least it's a nice dilemma to have.

My coffee plants seem to have been going through a period of being dormant. They have been almost static for the last month, apart from the few inevitable brown leaves that seem to appear every year. I'm still hopeful that the smallest one is not on its way out, but experience tells me this might well be its last winter. We'll see. Fingers crossed that the others stay healthy and they start growing again soon.

That's probably it for the next week as I'm not sure I'll be able to post while I'm away. So much depends on the technology working and given what happened the last time I went to London, I hae me doubts. Have a good one folks and I'll be back in the land of onlinedness when I can.

What a way to waste a morning

I love Wimbledon and when it's on I become rather obsessive about rushing home with the tennis on the radio, dashing in the door to switch on the telly and can sit for hours reveling in the splendour that is athletes performing at their best in a sport that I love. Somehow I always manage to be working during Wimbledon and so always miss bits and last year made the heinous crime of actually being away working during the finals ... big mistake. So imagine my joy this morning when the Australian Open women's final was on first thing this morning. What a way to wake up. What a way to waste a morning!

And guess what... I get to do it all over again tomorrow when it's the men's finals. Go Andy Murray!

The alternative New Year

An admission: I've been having coffee for the last couple of days and no bad after effects which is fantastic. I'm now back to being a coffee lover! The other thing is that I braved a glass of red wine last night in the hope that I could manage it and still feel ok the next day. I decided to choose last night because I didn't have any work today... that would've been fine except that I had the wrong page in my diary (don't ask) and actually have a meeting to attend this morning where I absolutely have to make sense. So I'm happy to report that I woke up this morning feeling alright and with my brain fairly in gear.

I'm now writing off January as a dead loss and have decided to start my year all over again and have designated 1st February as the new New Year. Anyone want to join me?

Who're you going to blame?

After my first flush of what felt like good health, and which lasted approximately 24 hours, I found myself back in position A. This involved wearing a mask (to cut out the light), a Migraine Kool'n Soothe (to help with the headache) and wrapped up in bed with my Peter Rabbit hot water bottle (my personal soother) and feeling like death warmed up. This lasted for most of the day, but then felt a bit better by evening. And this has been the pattern ever since. I feel ok for a day, or two, at the very most and then collapse again in a fit of headache and tiredness. I'm truly sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. None of this is helping my studies or my work and I'm now acres behind on what feels like both.

Yesterday was a feel a bit better day and I was in the mood to work, to sort, in other words to get on with things. In the process I realised I'm supposed to be going to London in a couple of weeks and also realised that my train tickets were nowhere to be found. I searched high and low but nothing, nada. So I got on the phone to the TrainLine to find out how I go about ordering replacements.

The TrainLine, to be fair to them, have a statement on their website that says that they charge you 10p per minute to phone them. And I suppose I should have already guessed from this that the phone call would take far longer than necessary (call me a cynic!). It took over 11 minutes for the woman in a continent that certainly wasn't Europe, to tell me that she had dealt with my query but now needed to hand me on to someone else who would arrange the reference so I could pick up my tickets at the station when I travel. I could feel the incandescent rage beginning to rise, but as I was put on hold for a further few minutes I had time to calm down before the next operator came on the line. He asked me exactly the same questions and took the same amount of time as his counterpart. At least at the end of this I got the reference number. So a whole 24 minutes 37 seconds later (yes... ok a bit OCD I know) I had all I needed to travel. I also had rising blood pressure and a feeling of being completely conned. I had a small whisky to help me feel better. Purely medicinal you understand.

And guess what? Today I woke up with a raging headache and extreme tiredness. Can't really blame the TrainLine, can I? Well maybe a little. Anyway, suffice it to say, I'm pissed off... very pissed off. So it seems that coffee is not the only thing I can't drink at the moment, it's alcohol too. Great eh?

One out of two ain't bad

Last night I fancied an alcoholic beverage for the first time since 5th January, and because I think it's a good thing to indulge in things if I feel like them, I had a couple of whiskies and bloody good they were too! In truth I might well have had more, but the bottle was empty, which is probably a good thing.

Funny really, as up to 3 years ago I would never have said that I liked whisky, but at our wedding party in Feb 2008, Lizzie's love left half a bottle of Highland Park behind. I decided to try it to see what all the fuss was about (Lizzie's love would only drink Highland Park) and I really liked it. I still don't like a lot of whiskies, but have to agree that Highland Park is exceptionally drinkable.

This morning I could even bear the smell of coffee, but don't feel like trying that today. Maybe tomorrow will be the day that I get back to being a coffee drinker. And then I will truly be back to my normal.

Man flu

Today is the first day since the 5th January that I have felt good enough to get up and make early morning drinks. It feels great to feel almost human again. I had a bit of a blip and went downhill on Thursday and Friday, so took yesterday off and rested. It has paid dividends. I still have a bit of a headache but it's like the fog is lifting and can think again. Now I can get on with my OU work, the course I have to write, and catch up with all the bits and pieces that I haven't done for what feels like ages.

The sad thing is that my Beloved now seems to have it. He started with the headache yesterday and is not feeling so good today and looks very peely wally. Sadly plastic soup is not his thing and so it will just take time and resting for him to get better.

It's a strange thing though, as in this house there seems to be a bit of a juxtaposition. When we get ill it's me that gets the man version while he always seems to get off quite lightly, so I'm pretty sure it won't be too long before he feels human again.

Birthday over

Yesterday was a lovely day. My Beloved took me to a spa which happened to be on the edge of the M8 on the way to Livingston. He bought it through something called Groupon, where you get things cheap but only as long as lots of people go for it. The package was for £150 worth of spa and treatments for £49.50, so my Beloved decided at that price he'd come too.

It was a chaotic start and although was meant to start at 10, the place wasn't really open or geared up. I was keeping my fingers crossed that it was going to be ok at that point. And the fact that we were supposed to get our treatments at 12 and we didn't get them til gone 1 also didn't bode too well. Still we had time in the sauna and then in the hot tub - which was very, very hot and I only lasted about 15 mins. The only thing was, was that it all felt a bit surreal. There we were in our cozzies being boiled alive on the side of the M8 with police sirens going by!

However, once the treatments started it was fantastic. A massage, a facial, a foot and hand massage and nails painted (me not the Beloved, he baulked at that one!) left me feeling very chilled.

Then it was home. By that time I was totally bushed. Amazing how exhausting it can be doing not very much at all. I've decided I must do more of it!

So that was that, and now it's back to work. I'm still feeling very tired and my brain feels very fuzzy, but I'm definitely getting better. Not drinking coffee better yet, nor alcohol, but I'm hopeful that soon I shall be back to both, and I've been promised a meal out to celebrate. Can't ask for more than that.

Getting back to real food

After reading the comments so kindly left by Bassman and Lizzie I thought I'd give you an update on the state of my health.

After another day of plastic soup I began to feel a little more like eating real food last night. So I had pretend sausages (veggie) with a little mash for dinner last night, which didn't make me feel sick -  a bonus I'm sure you'll agree - and I felt at last that I was beginning to get back to a state where I could get out of bed.

I've still got a headache and still feeling dizzy today, but actually do feel like I shall be able to get beyond the bathroom and start, slowly, to get back to normal.

The one thing that I still can't stomach however, is coffee. The very thought of it makes me feel like retching. I'm supposing this will be the last breach of getting back to normality and will be my benchmark for a full recovery having taken place.

So if any of you bright sparks out there have any remedies for headaches, dizziness and the non-stomaching of coffee please let me know. Otherwise I may have to follow Bassman's lead and change the name of my blog.

Plastic soup

I began to feel a bit unwell on Wednesday night, which got worse and worse as Wednesday turned into Thursday. Yesterday was a complete dead loss and it was only due to the ministrations of my Beloved that actually got me through it. I couldn't keep anything, including water, down until well into the evening, when I managed a piece of dried toast.

After a couple of hours I then had some more toast and some soup. The weirdest thing is that the only kind of soup that I can stomach when I'm ill is Knorr Spring Vegetable packet soup. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't let anything so revolting pass my lips, but there's something about it that seems to do it for me when I'm unwell. It's not like real soup, a bit plastic actually, and has the strangest consistency that I'm not sure anyone could imitate when making from scratch. Luckily we always have a packet or two in the cupboard just in case.

Today I'm still feeling lousy, but definitely better, so it's a good thing the whole packet was made up so that I've got something to have for my lunch and dinner. A bit sad as tonight is the Borders Search and Rescue Christmas get together, which they always seem to have well into the New Year. So while my Beloved and others are tucking into the delights of whatever it was we ordered about a month ago (what is it about ordering food so long in advance that there's not a hope in hell of remembering what it was when it comes to the moment?), I shall be tucking into the last of the plastic soup. Lucky me!

Christmas ends

We had a really lovely night with Shirley and Andy, though I'm convinced S didn't want me to win at Wii (you know what you did, girl!). But I did better at the Team Trivial Pursuit and only lost one game. The good thing was that they stayed the night and so there was no rush. Didn't get to bed til well after midnight and a late get up this morning.

After they left I decided that it was time for the cards and the tree to come down and so effectively Christmas is now over. I always feel a bit sad as I pack up the lights and the tree as it's a reminder that the party season is finished and the sombreness of January and February begin. Always the worst months for feeling low as it's still dark outside in the early morning and it gets dark early so feels like there's no respite from winter. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have much more snow as I'm truly fed up with the white stuff.

So now to knuckle down to work and get myself back on the treadmill... literally in this case as I need to get fit after weeks of doing not much at all and am feeling really out of sorts. Christmas overdoing it will have to stop and a bit of a spartan regime will have to begin. That's the theory of course...

It IS Sunday

I've had a few problems trying to think what day of the week I'm on. Anyway, I've realised today is Sunday and had almost decided that it will be another day off... but... the course I'm writing with a colleague needs to be ready for end of next week in its draft form and it still needs a bit of work, so will try and crack on with that. But I think today will be mainly downtime.

I've been very good and not gone onto the OU website. I've spent my time over the last few days reading and doing the course instead. The trouble with an online cafe I've realised is that it's very easy to spend quite a lot of time in the virtual world, having a virtual cup of coffee and a virtual chat with folk, but what happens is that no work gets done and slightly defeats the object of the exercise. So I've banned myself from it for the next wee while and see how I get on.

Shame really as I love to hear what others are up to and the lot on the alternative cafe are an interesting and erudite bunch who are very supportive and a lot of them are extremely good writers. This is probably why they can spend their time in the virtual world and not have it affect them, as they've already honed their craft so to speak, whereas newbies like me can spend far too much time virtually listening to them and not honing anything.

It also doesn't help that I've put my back out. It's on the mend, but still a bit sore. Went for a walk yesterday, but really felt it after, so another excuse for taking today easy and conserving my energy for tomorrow, when we're expecting friends at some point during the day and then we have our return match with Andy and Shirley in the evening.

New Year Coffee Plant update:
The poorly plant is still poorly. It hasn't got any worse but looks quite pathetic next to its larger relatives. But the larger ones also have the odd brown leaf, so maybe it's just the time of year. They certainly aren't too keen on the cold and are a bit like their owner who'd far rather be in warmer climes and gets a bit pathetic in the winter... probably why I chose to grow coffee plants in the first place as we have so much in common!