"I'll tell you what's close to my heart at the moment - My left lung."

Well I currently have all the gripping strength of a toddler, but somehow I managed to get through my workdays. I've been wearing an arm length 'tubigrip' partly to help with the pain, and partly as a visual aid to say 'my arm hurts'. I actually have a very physical job, despite appearances.

I'd intended to come in from work tonight, get drunk and watch 'Dexter' but instead I fell fast asleep. I ended up having a 1am bath (I find the hot water eases the old arms and helps me get off to sleep). I am feeling very very old this week.

If I believed in horoscopes (and I most certainly do not!), todays may have read 'a message from a most unexpected source'.

I've nothing more to say, for now.

“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine” - St. Thomas Aquinas

“It is often the last key on the ring which opens the door”

I fell over just outside the hospital. It was about 7.10am, dark and very icy.
I'm officially useless.
I landed on my right arm, and couldn't feel my fingers until about 10am (sadly I was a 13 hour shift today.). I was in agony, but I couldn't go home due too fear for my job (see back issues for details of my Hospitals sick policy). One lady walked past and offered to help, but I said I'd probably just pull her over too, so she passed on by.

I have no idea how I got changed into my uniform. I attended physiotherapy (for my left shoulder, remember), but the physio said I was obviously too uncomfortable for any exercises. I did get a nice Consultant Surgeon to look at my arm tonight. He said it wasn't broken, small mercies.
That's that.

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking” - Frederick Nietzsche

“He was part of my dream, of course - but then I was part of his dream too.”

"When logic and proportion,
Have fallen sloppy dead"

I've had a CD for months all wrapped up and ready to post. All that time it had a long, long heartfelt letter inside it. Then a few weeks ago, I shredded it. (for various reasons)
I wrote another letter, still full of regret, but less pleading, more resigned. Today I'd intended to post it, but at the eleventh hour I wrote a third letter, which was a schizophrenic blend of it's two antecedents. I was minutes from the post office, but I had a turnabout. The package sits on the desk in front of me, where it'll probably stay for a very very long time, the letter* unread, the music unplayed. Even if it had found a favourable audience, what would it change? Too much time has passed. I shredded that first long and florid letter for a reason, and that's never likely to change now is it?

I remain, as ever , a fool.

“When you are describing A shape, or sound, or tint; Don't state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things With a sort of mental squint” - Lewis Carroll



*(it also contained birthday greetings - Happy Birthday Barbara)

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm”

"Creature comfort goals
They only numb my soul and make it hard for me to see
My thoughts all seem to stray, to places far away
I need a change of scenery"

This is rather tragic (in the pathetic rather than sad way). Here I am, at 5.30 in the morning, but it's not insomnia, but the dreaded drip. It woke me up around 5am. I looked outside and the promised heavy snow was nowhere to be seen , but there was a little slush about, so where was the fuel for the 'telltale heart' style drip? Cue comedic scenes of me leaning out of various windows, and climbing ladders at 5am in my dressing gown and slippers , in a sub zero world - positive action! But I did track it down! finally! It appears the guttering has become misplaced causing all the drainage from the flat roof to gather at one spot and drip heavily against the side of the house. So I think I can hear only a faint version round at the front, the main event being against Billie's wall, and strangely directly over the damage to my dining room wall. I'm sure it's easily fixable (until I'm probably told it all needs replacing) . So the £1000 roof repair was jut a lucky (in maintenance , rather than monetary terms?) coincidence? read on...

(post script from later in the day - sadly you get nothing for free, and Mr.Roof wants another £60 to fix the guttering. Work will get done next week , here's hoping,but I told him he'll have to wait until after next payday for reparations. At least I'll be able to return to my usual woes,
C'est la vie!)

"-tear up the planks! --here, here! --it is the beating of his hideous heart!" - Edgar Allan Poe

"Knew a man who had a hole clean through his whole shoulder, once. Used to keep a spare hankie in there."

"Well it's been a year or so, and I want to go back again,
And if I get the money, well I'll ride the same old train."

Crikey I'm bored. Bored stupid (although I was already half way there).
I suppose that means I've stopped obsessing about the noise in my walls (no not delusions, just the mysterious dripping), at least until I'm lying in bed tonight, listening... listening... (use your imagination here).
I've no evidence that Mr. Roof even turned up, I tried ringing, but I think he may have blocked calls from my number (I am only joking by the way).
I went for my physio treatment today and amusingly whilst getting the pulse therapy, the consultation behind the next curtain turned out to be my Charge Nurse Michael, who just got back from Texas yesterday. I didn't say anything of course it would have been indiscreet.

I was toying with the idea of not going to the Christmas night out (in a fortnight). Demand is high for places and I could easily off load my place. However I realised that apart from my lonely sojourn to Glasgow, I had not had a night out since Barbara's bittersweet visit, all those long , long months ago (how I miss her, but , well, you know). So if I can find something for my horrendous frame to wear, I'm going. To quote Mal Reynolds , "no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

“There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, ever.” - Viggo Mortenson

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt" - Mark Twain

"The tragedy of *your* time, my young friends, is that you may get exactly what you want"

Luckily things don't seem so bad when the heating's on, and the rain has stopped. I fear for my (mental) health.
Oh a glass of wine helped also. Speaking of which I just watched The Monkees "Head" on DVD for the first time in a long while. I've never experienced drugs, other than alcohol, but I can imagine this film is the perfect accompaniment. I love this film, but I've only ever seen it by myself. with (the wrong) company, I can imagine it would be cringe inducing (it is very much a product of it's times). It feels very much like a dream, unconnected scenes that in their own context seem to fit together perfectly, until you analyse them later, what am I talking about? I also finally started watching the TV show on DVD, and although not the laugh fest I remember from my own childhood (they were repeats cheeky) they are a lot of fun, but very firmly a marketing tool. Unlike the film, which seems very much like an attempt to self destruct the 'bubblegum' image. Semi interesting tangent over, back to our regular programmes.

Another awful day at work. Specifics really aren't that interesting. However my job recently seems to be fitting an (almost) infinite amount of patients, into a most definitely finite number of beds, add to that paperwork and cleaning and the remaining amount of actual patient care is minuscule.

One of my Colleagues today handed in her notice, as she is relocating in January to Canada. I looked like this... (imagine strange fat face) when she told me - ho hum.

My nemesis, Mr Roof, returns tomorrow, I do hope it's for the last time!

I'm so miserable, I'm off for a very late bath....

"Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself." - Mark Twain

“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively” - Voltaire

Damn and blast !
Just on my way to work, but I had to tell someone that the dreaded drip is back! I know to anyone reading this I must seem like a shut in loon (and to some degree I am) but I've spent close to a thousand pounds on roof repairs, the initial symptom of which was this drip, and there it is again, as bad as ever.

I wish I was more of a problem solver (with a large bank account, money really can solve most problems) .