Return of the hammer wielding fiends

Once more the wielders of the lead cored, matted felt, lump hammers are on the rampage. Yesterdays aches, and nagging bruised feeling in the armpits, are now accompanied by a bruised sensation in limbs and torso; even my head has not escaped the fiends’ nocturnal havoc! To be honest, my head feels as if it has been swathed in blankets with the occasional tourniquet applied around temples, eyes, ears and jaw-line.

A sharp spasmodic cramping pain in the right lower limb plays counterpoint to the dull aching shoulders and upper limbs. For a few days the discomforting throbbing armpit has been doing its darnedest to make me forget the progress I’ve been making during 2007. For the first time in many months, the helping presence of my beloved was essential as I showered this morning and, a little rest period following this dowsing imposed itself upon me.

I trust that this minor setback will be swiftly overcome; perhaps it’s simply a belated reaction to the drained resources of physical and emotional stamina consequent upon my recent holiday excursion. Falling falteringly asleep mid-afternoon, in recent days, was quite probably the hammer wielders warning signal.

At least these dully throbbing visitations are not recurring with the same frequency nor, hopefully, of such sustained duration, as was my lot in earlier times.

Mal's Passion

Today's blog posting, A TALE OF PASSION, can be found on 'Mal's Murmurings'.

If at first .....

When I grow up I want to be a helicopter pilot; I’m just wondering if, when I’m able to come off incapacity, either Yes2Work or the local Job Centre will be able to arrange for me to obtain the necessary training. It’s quite strange really, as a wee small boy I always wanted to be a test pilot until someone disillusioned me by saying I’d need to work at my maths and, perhaps, being good at PE would help. You can barely imagine just how shattered this young lad’s dreams were, to be obstructed at one fell stroke, on two counts, from the possibility of pursuing my dreams.

Anyway, from the age of 14 onwards, I absolutely knew I wanted to do nursing and even made a stab at it when I came of age. When that fell through, there was no possibility of my considering a flying career (even had I been qualified) as the best route would have been through HMs forces which didn’t sit well with my commitment to CND and Committee of 100. Perhaps my (very) leftward political inclination would also have militated against any attempt to join such an augustly representative body of the establishment!

Ignore that slight wander down the allotment path as we return to the matter in hand. Since my first encounter with flying models at that fateful barbecue it seems as if the die has been cast. It’s definitely helicopters for me; I’ve already learnt to crash models and not let it deter me. My determination astonishes me.

My first model, a featherweight Picoo Z proved a natural to crash and bounce, it really is incredible that such a lightweight machine can plummet so rapidly with only the slightest release of the throttle. Within a month, of that first purchase, I decided to upgrade to an ESky Lama V3 and, in less than 24 hours, simply practising ‘bunny hops’ it was necessary to replace three of the four rotor blades. Even the hops proved difficult as the aircraft insisted on a degree of reverse motion as I throttled up. Our friend Mahmood sorted this problem for me yesterday by adjusting the swashplate and off to the practise flight we went. The only thing I managed to break this time was part of the tail trim (if you don’t count a further chipped rotor blade)!

I’ve now installed the FMS flight simulator on my PC and despite careful calibration am still managing to crash any model I set my hand to. If I fly at altitude it’s all too easy to keep aloft but, that swiftly becomes boring! The only solution seems to be to try the real aircraft and, being so well primed in the difficulties, I would ensure that I exercise all due caution and observe all safety precautions when my life’s at stake. It must be difficult for anyone who has not had a major crash to appreciate just how safety conscious one has to be!

When I grow up I’m going to be a born-again dreamer. It’s better to have tried and failed than never to have risked at all!

QUITE AN EFFORT!

(my) Big Brother was watching us for this customary promenade picture

In spite of my customary post-journeying fatigue, the little holiday jaunt now seems far away. Valiantly struggling against my post-exertional malaise, I seem to have accomplished much since returning to my cherished hearth and home on Thursday afternoon.

Cathy had carefully nurtured the fish, in both pond and aquarium, as well as the tomato plants, in our absence and, only one of the chilli plants was gasping for water. ‘Tis incredible the restorative power of H2O, although I must admit to a preference for rather more vinous liquids.

Friday found me rinsing the pond filters, dismantling and cleaning the pump from the same piscine habitat, and nervously manning the skillet (the first time for over a week) to produce a spicy salmon pasta dish. I’m sure the sight of my halo must dazzle any beholder. What else have I achieved, you may well wonder; I shamefacedly admit to destroying and having to replace three of the four rotor blades on my new and more sophisticated / powerful model helicopter (acquired whilst visiting my brother).

Meantime, I’ve managed to restore my oldest PC, following a major system collapse and, have also struggled since last evening to overcome a major problem with Helen’s new laptop. For this latter instance I had to resort to backing up all the documents, and Outlook Express files, to an external disk. In fact, the problems were such that I could only back up the documents over the network as the laptop refused to co-operate with the external drive! Having backed up these files, I set to wiping the C drive and re-install the machine to its factory settings. Much re-installing of programmes and configuring of the network was subsequently required.

Come to think of it, a minute amount of my holiday time was also spent fixing a computer for my brother, primarily sorting out its sluggishness by cleaning and defragging the registry before adding some more RAM. The machine certainly seemed to hurtle through its tasks with three times the memory installed.

But what of the holiday; if you really must know a very enjoyable time was had by all. Just for the pleasure of visiting my brother and sister-in law, I incidentally put myself through a kind of hell that only fellow sufferers from panic attacks and a dislike of travel could understand.

It made a really great change to visit the seafront each day in such affable company. The journey there was the furthest I’d travelled in a single day for longer than I can remember, in itself that makes it a major milestone. It was also a bonus that the Sussex Model Centre was in such close proximity but, my first two attempts to cross the threshold of this emporium were thwarted by an absence of sufficient physical or emotional stamina!

Having travelled down on the Friday, we were treated to a wonderful Indian meal in Worthing, courtesy of Linda (Jan’s sister) and her better half Russell. (That’s not to say that our hosts Dave and Jan had not previously pandered to our need for victuals; these were in plentiful supply!) Yet another first for me, to dine out in a busy restaurant for a couple of hours, a feat I had been unable to contemplate during most of the past four years.

The morning that we were due to set off on our excursion South, a severe panic attack almost led to me calling the whole thing off and, as history always has a knack of repeating itself, I spent an horrendous half-hour in the stygian gloom of panic, nausea and stomach cramps on the first leg of our journey home but, I (almost) willingly admit that the effort was worth it!

This post also appears on 'Mal's Murmurings' and 'Hirsute Antiquity'

twilight - groynes and boulders

Click image to see larger version

WORTH the jouneyING

Having just returned from a weeks visit to my brother and sister-in-law on the South coast, my blog postings have been temporarily on hold. Unfortunately my stamina doesn't quite run to expressing all I have to say. Meantime, I've just posted a brand new poem, FLOCKS AND CONGREGATIONS, on both 'Mal's Factory' and 'Archive Mined and Freshly Spun'.

In Questionable Taste

Today's blog posting, A QUESTION OF TASTE, can be found on 'Mal's Murmurings'.

Backfiring

Just pop your can in here (picture of a recycle bin) and, in six weeks it could be part of an aeroplane or a car! So goes the TV advert.

Up to this time I was all in favour of recycling but now, I’m really concerned about it. The advert makes it seem as if the whole point of recycling is to more swiftly produce pollution producing machines.

We already have far too many automobiles and aircraft destroying the environment and, I see no reason that I should help the manufacturers of such machines utilize what I’ve given away to create further health hazards!

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Tonight I seriously considered going paper-free, in terms of bank statements, only to find repeated warnings that you should print off your own copies. As far as I can see, the banks simply want to optimize their obscenely gargantuan profits by saving on the printing and postage costs of sending out statements to their customers. It may seem like a good idea to let the customer use their own electricity, paper and printing ink to save a hard copy of their transaction record – definitely not for the benefit of the consumer.

What is it about The Scottish Play

A new, somewhat whimsical, poem called REFLECTED GLORY can be found on 'Mal's Factory'.

It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way That You Do It

Having recovered from my recent venture into the North Yorkshire Heartland, (reprinted below in case you can’t be bothered to follow the link), I felt sufficiently inspired to obtain a micro R/C helicopter of my very own. Flying the little machine is quite an art and, so far I’ve managed a few crash landings as a result of too rapid throttling down. As all our rooms are rather cluttered it proves a tremendous testing ground for my beginner’s skills. My limited powers of concentration are certainly tested to their full extent. A walk around the corner to my younger (step) daughter’s home enabled me to demonstrate my newly acquired skills in their open-plan residence. Providence must have led to this wonderful airspace being available just a few steps from our own front door.

Who’d have thought that going to a barbecue could lead to the purchase of a helicopter? The god of commerce certainly moves in mysterious ways. If the saying is true that “little things please little minds”, I am proud to be the owner of a mind of microscopic proportion! Still, size isn’t everything; it’s what you do with it that counts!

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A venture into North Yorkshire’s Heartland (posted 05 August 2007 on Mal’s Murmurings)

Sweltering hot and humid weather, just what I needed today! A night of aches and pains, tender glands and recurrent cramps, was further heightened by the general mugginess. The big question is how much do I blame atmospheric conditions and, how much yesterday’s exertions (no matter how enjoyable they were) for being the real culprit?

Today has been a day of spasmodically intense discomfort in neck, hips, knees, thighs and calves. Stand up to move across the room and, next minute writhing in agony on the floor; sit down on a dining chair before suddenly having to jump to painful attention. It’s with the most intense gratitude that I recognize such circumstance as having been an almost daily occurrence a couple of years back; these days, the experience proves more startling because it’s not such a regular companion.

Yesterday began in the usual low key manner, apart from my beauty sleep being disturbed at an early hour by the telephone’s shrill, with a quick visit into town (chauffeured by ma belle amoureuse) around lunchtime. On returning home, I marinaded a couple of chicken breast fillets in one of my special spice concoctions before giving them a light char-grilling. A couple more fillets served as the basis for a casserole prepared for Sunday lunch.

By 4.15pm we headed off to our barbecue, in deepest North Yorkshire, far off the beaten track. The setting proved quite idyllic as we observed a multitude of House Martins, feeding on the wing before heading back to their nests in the eaves of the farmhouse. A couple of gazebos had been erected in the grounds, next to a gigantic weeping willow, just in case the elements turned against us.

Apart from wining and dining I took advantage of the opportunity to fly a model helicopter and, carefully monitored the rev counter on a real jet-engined model aircraft. We later ventured into the guitar, keyboard and PA lined music room and communally sang along to some 60’s classics. Adequately, though not excessively, alcohol fuelled (my tolerance ain’t what it used to be), I was quite happy to launch into my party-piece rendition of Phil Ochs ‘Draft Dodger Rag’, the lyrics of which seemed quite pertinent to a gathering of medics. Having enjoyed the festivities for over four hours, a record breaking bout of socializing for the past four years, we had a leisurely drive home.

I guessed there may be repercussions for attempting to enjoy a normal life but, I hope and trust that recovery will not be long delayed!

This post also appears on Hirsute Antiquity.