Ball Clear!

Thank you Mr Jones (the consultant).
You've had a good feel and found nothing unusual. Great.

Medical scare over then.

No pictures though!

Tomorrow I go to Hospital again for the Back Pain.
There might be pictures if I can get some...

Consultants are like Buses

I've been waiting to see a consultant about my broken back and as some of you will know I have to see another consultant about a bit of lumpage. I've gone private for the 2nd consultant so managed to get an appointment on Monday 19th Feb at 7:15 PM. This morning I got a letter form the Royal Berkshire Hospital telling me I have the appointment for my back on Tuesday 20th Feb.

So now I can get all the news about my ailments before I go on holiday on Friday 23rd Feb.

Excellent!

Poisoned...

It seems that I managed to poison myself with some good old fashioned home cooking.

I'd been watching a telly program about diet and and how to keep slim and saw some evidence of low fat dairy products helping your body get rid of up to 50% more fat and about high protein foods helping the stomach not to feel hungry so quickly so I decided that a low fat cheese omlette would be an ideal meal with some mixed salad on the side.

I guess that the eggs were not cooked properly which is rather suprising since I consider myself able to cook some of the best omlettes I have ever tasted or seen. This meal was eaten on Friday evening at about 7:30pm and by 3am Saturday I had

really

bad stomach pains. I then went into a cold sweat and an unrelenting outpouring for 20 to 30 minutes. This was followed by trips to the bathroom at regular 2 minute intervals for the next several hours. This all gradually calmed down by the end of Saturday with only mild pains by 8 in the evening.

Still, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, I am now able to tighten my belt on the last notch and no I don't have to breathe right in to make it happen either! Real fat loss...

Da Belt Don't Lie!

Fat Looser's Progress

Well it's the end of January. It's actually the last day as I type this and my Fat Loss regime is doing well in so far as I am loosing fat all over which is good I think.

Last night though I just could not get to sleep and found myself still awake at 1:30 am this morning feeling rather hungry. Now I've not really felt hungry for quicte some while until I started on my fat loss plan but last night the feelings were really getting to me. I just could not think of anything else but food so I gave in and went down stairs and had two slices of toast, butter and tomato ketchup and a cup of tea. I sat and ate that while I watched late night TV (King of Queens I think) until 3am. Feeling quite tired I went to bed and was able to go straight off to sleep.

This morning I woke rather late at 8am and realised I had to move the car as it was parked on the pavement outside the school opposite so I rushed out of bed threw some clothes on and went out and de-iced the car and parked it further up the road in a more sensible place.

Once I'd done all that I needed to get logged on to system for wrk and get preped for a conference call so didn't have time to have any breakfast.

By about noon I was once again feeling hungry so I grabbed a "Healthy Living" burger for the freeze and dry fried and microwaved to along with some chilli beans and garden peas.

I've just been out for an hours walk around town to get a parcel from thepost office and to tax the car and am feeling hungry again.

There must be something missing from my diet. I should not feel hungry because I'll just revert back to the old ways of cheese sandwiches before dinner which really would undo all the good fat loss work I've done so far.

Being a Fat Looser is really hard!

Tighten my belt...

With the excesses of last year and especially November and December I decided that from about 6th January I would try to loose some fat from around my ever expanding belly. I am please to announce that my plan is working and that I am now able to tighten my belt by at least one whole notch.

For the last few years, actually since we first visited Alex and Lisa in Australia, I have been wearing a R W Williams leather belt. Well actually it's been two belts both exactly the same the second being two inches smaller which I bought at Cairns airport in 2005 on my way to Dunk Island.

I'm confident that when we visit Australia again in February this year I will need to purchase yet another R W Williams belt in a smaller size as my current "small" belt has just one notch to go.

Doctors visit

I've been to see the GP, Dr Unwin, this morning and explained all the trouble with my back. He was very sympathetic and has referred me to a specialist to have a "Bone Scan". As I'm on the NHS It'll take about 6 to 8 weeks to get an appointment. All seems to be improving with the pain though. I've not taken any pain killers today at all and only have a slight pain in my lower left leg.

I'll keep you posted on progress and when I get an appointment with Dr. Bones!

Back trouble...

The back problem continues although the drugs do help. I've been trying not to take too many so i've just taken one of each evry day instead of the "one, three times a day" the doctor prescribed. I have had one bad pain attack in my left knee and had to take an extra Tramadol which sorted that out.

I was feeling OK'ish yesterday evening although there was a little bit of pain in my left leg. I'd taken the tablets at about 7:30pm just before dinner. Early this morning, about 7, I started to feel a b it uncomfortable so by 7:45 I decided to get up and make a cup of tea and take the full set of drugs, 3 in all.

I went back to bed with cups of tea for me and Wendy. I remember drinking my tea but then don't remember anything until I woke up at about 1pm.

I'm feeling pretty well OK at the moment apart from the continued numbness in my left big toe and feeling lightheaded.

I have a doctors appointment at 9:10am tomorrow (Monday) so I'm hoping I'll get referred to a specialist to get the spine thing sorted once and for all.

If I can get hold of any X-Rax pics I'll post them here.

A night at the Hospital

Well the back pain got the better of me and of a 2 day maximum dose of Ibuprofen. Last night following a bit of a coughing fit my lower left back became seriously painful. Through the night from 11pm to about 4am the pain got worse and affected my left leg and foot. My foot was going numb so I got a b it worried. When I could take no more I decided to get Wendy to take me to the hospital A&E in Reading.

The hospital doctor gave me more pain killers (Codeine, Diazepam and paracetemol) and these started to work after about 40 minutes but wore off about half an hour after that. Further examination and some questions about my bowel control satisfied the doctors that the pains were not a sign of something more serious so they gave me some more powerful pain killers (Tramadol) and another Diazepam to relax my muscles.

I had an X-ray on my back which has revealed that at some point in the past one of my lower vertebrae has been broken or cracked and because of this the gap between it and the one above is too small and that is what's causing the pain.

I was at the hospital for about 3 hours and was able to walk reasonably normally when I left although that's thanks to the pain killers.

I have an appointment with my GP on Monday so I'll be asking to see a specialist so that I can get this sorted out. The hospital doc said that one option is to have an operation to put a screw in to keep the affected bones at the correct distance. That sounds a bit drastic though so we'll wait to see what the specialist has to say.

Another New Year

Well, we made it!. Here we are in 2007 and all is back to normal. I'm back to work at NTL-Telewest and Wendy is out walking the dog as usual.
I've been unwell (as usual) over the holiday but starting to feel better now I'm back to work. TYPICAL!

Anniversary

1. The annually recurring date of a past event, especially one of historical, national, or personal importance:

a wedding anniversary; the anniversary of the founding of Rome.

2. A celebration commemorating such a date.

The 20th December 2006 is the anniversary of our move to Henley from Knossington so Wendy decided it was an important enough date for us to celebrate.
We went out to a little restaurant in Henley town centre called Antico.

Neither of us had been there before and we hadn't booked a table. We made our way to Antico via the "Idle Hour" pub which we'd also never been in and probably won't go in again. It's one of those modern GastroBars that is not really suited to Henley. We had to walk past the many flowers left on the street at the spot where a local business man was recently kicked to death.

The Idle Hour does not accept debit cards for less than £10 so a bit of searching around in Wendy's purse was needed to get the £8.50 for the two drinks I'd ordered. Pint of Lager and a large white wine.

Once we'd had enough of that place we then walked around town to the Antico and made our way down the little alley way to the entrance. All very quaint. There seemed to be quite a bit of noise coming from the place and I was concerned that we'd not get a table as we had not booked. We were warmly greeted by the owner and our coats were taken to hang up. They apologised that they had a work christmas party in.

We were seated at a reasonable table and offered drinks, we ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio which was excellent. I really cant remember the Italian names of the food we ordered but we had, Mushroom pasta and Crab pancake for starter and Veal and Fish for main. Wendy didn't want any pudding but I had Créme Brullee and a glass of Ben Rye desert wine which was fantastic.

There was some food left over and of course the bone from the veal so we asked for a "Doggy Bag" for Jarvis. The left overs came back wrapped in tin foil in the shape of a swan. Wendy has pictures of this. I was a bit drunk and for some reason known only the Drunk Steve wore the swan on my head on the way home to the great ammusement of people in the Pizza Restaurant we passed. Wendy Has pictures of this too.

A great celebration for our one year in Henley. We'll certainly go back to the Anitico probably in January as the food and service were top notch.

Economic road pricing my arse...

The UK Government have commissioned a report on how we can stop road congestion and guess what they came up with.

Improve public Transport?
Improve roads?
Better traffic management systems?

Oh No, none of that.

Economic Road Pricing. What does it mean I hear you say. Well, it's just another Tax Attack on the British motorist. They'll install sensors (cameras probably) EVERYWHERE and read your registration number so they know where you've been driving and when you were there so they can then produce an invoice for road usage.

They're currently justifying it by saying "It's only fair that the more you use the road the more you pay..."

Bloody Hell! We already do that with Petrol Tax of about 70 pence a litre.

Apart from the money it'll cost me just to get to work, I don't like the idea of a Government department knowing where I've been driving. Looks like Orwell was about 100 years adrift. Big Brother is Watching YOU. 2084

Ikea on a Sunday

Having run out of space on my newly aquired desk, we decided that we needed some additional shelving in the bedroom come office. We checked out where Ikea is in London and ended up going to the Edmonton some 60 miles away. Not a bad journey though around the M25 and then down the A10. We used TomTom to find our way but were a little confused when we were advised "You have reached you destination" and couldn't see any sign of the Ikea store. After a couple of minutes thinking about what to do we just wnet down the road a bit more through a couple of sets of lights and had just about given up when we saw a Tesco Petrol station and thought, Ah They'll know where it is. As we turned into the road for Tesco, there was Ikea right opposite, just 2 miles from the postcode location!

£85 later we came home.

The shelf unit was really easy to put together and is big enough to house a VHS video recorder and my faithful old Laser Printer which is now about 6 years old and still as good as new. Oh it is such a joy to have some shelves again.

Ah how sweet is that random shuffle play...

I've just launched iTunes on shuffle play and one of my unknown favourites came on
Elton John
Captain fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
We all Fall in Love Sometimes

It's a bloody Classic!

Be Nice...

Nuf said...

Any port in a storm...

Yesterday evenings recommended aperitif was "Chip Dry White Port" served with Roasted Almonds and Olives. This was quite nice especially with the Almonds but I think I had a little too much port.

Strange Email you get sometimes

In a recent email exchange about meeting objectives I got this...

"We and that is a big we will pull them together an drive the ambiguity out.

I will call you tom"

Yes that's all it said. When asked what it was about the sender admitted they couldn't understand it either.

Funny old world really...

Where did that six inches come from?

Looking at an old photo we have on our bedroom shelf I noticed how thin I was 33 years ago. I had a 32 inch waist. All those years have taken their toll as I now have a comfortable 38 inch waist.

Oh woe is me. I must eat less and have less alcohol.

Fat Chance!

I remember this as if it was yesterday so at least the brain is still OK

Never trust the Revenue

Once again I've been contacted by Her Majestys Revenue and Customer (formerly Inland Revenue) telling me that I haven't sent in a "self assessment" return for 2004/2005 tax year.

I had a problem with this early this year and thought I'd sorted it out having had about 5 phone conversations with a woman at the tax office and sending in a duplicate return and getting verbal confirmation from them that they'd got it.

Luckily my Accountant has a copy of the return so I'll need to have them send it again. Registered Post this time I think!

Whats so good about RapidWeaver Blogging then?

I moved to RapidWeaver blogging for a number of reasons. These are:
1 - My son Dan owns Realmac Software, the makers of RapidWeaver.

2 - Offline Blogging - Ever had something to blog and no internet connection? I can blog away to my hearts content without even the slightest hint of a net connection and then publish when I get home.

3 - Categories - Splitting out Work, personal and such is a great idea. I didn't realise this until I recently started a project management blog on blogger in addition to my personal blog. With RW I've got as many categories as I want all in one place.

4 - My blog now fits with the rest of my peronal website.

5 - Adding pictures is really easy now with the media browser. No more export choose and upload palarva.

Moving to RapidWeaver

Since Dan and Ben have released these new theme packs aimed at bloggers I've decided to give it a try in place of my old blog on blogger.com.