Thursday

I had every intention of going to work today, I went to bed early and made the decision to cut down a bit on the amount of CoCodamine I'm taking - it makes me wooly headed and I think it affects my balance. As a result I woke up at 4am with my face throbbing. I did manage a few hours in the house and had a proper breakfast and went back to bed at 9am 'for a nap' and woke up at nearly 3pm. Another day lost. In truth - I'm starting to feel better - my arms hurt a lot less today and I'm typing better, I really want to go back to work now. By coincidence, a new piece of work came in - a really short but interesting piece for someone who used to be a pop star and still works in the industry. It seems like years ago that he was 'current' - but he's still in his 20's so I suspect he may have been about 11 when he was on the telly before. I'm starting it in the morning.

Almost all the scabs on my face and arms have fallen off, except the big wound on my shoulder so I look OK, although I do look like I've had a small stroke. I have the kind of aches and pains you get the day after some kind of stupid exertion. It's been almost 2 weeks and even though I was very lucky - I'm amazed at how much harm you can do to yourself in just a few seconds.

I had solid food today. Scrambled egg, baked-beans and toast - it was lovely. I think that stopping the anti-inflammatories is already fixing my digestive system - I spoke to a friend yesterday who has gout and takes the same meds and it's the bane of his life. You develop a new respect for people when you 'feel their pain'.

I managed to get into a row with a complete stranger (I think she's about 18) about Jeremy Corbyn earlier this afternoon. I won. Her 'thesis' was that she wanted him to be the leader of the Labour party - but that she was going to vote green at the general election. She couldn't quite get her head around the failure in logic here. I used to be a member of the Green party - many years ago when I lived in Liverpool, and was very active. I even published a newspaper for them . In my constituency now the tories got in partly because of a particularly vicious boundary change - we regard her as the MP for Rye, and not Hastings - and partly because the local Green candidate spent the election attacking the labour candidate and party rather than the tories, garnering quite a few populist votes for himself - and guaranteeing that Amber Rudd returned as MP (even to her own surprise) - I don't know how he feels now that Rudd is Environment and climate change Secretary and is about to do more damage that any of us thought possible.

One of the reasons I'm voting for Andy Burnham (I have nothing against any of the candidates, they are all good people) is that I believe he still has an emotional connection with his roots and his beliefs that supercedes his political persona - and he's the only candidate who will be able to stand in front of the house of commons and honestly tell the truth about past mistakes and admit when things were wrong  without making it 'politics' - I think that a lot of mud will be thrown around over the next 5 years, not just from the tories but from a number of long-term enquiries that are gathering steam in the background and we need someone with both strength, political passion and some humility.

In other news, I've had some incredibly bad news about one of my oldest friends. I'm having trouble taking it in at the moment and figuring out how to deal with it. It's changed the way I feel about my own problems.