Aka Monday 28th March - Sunday 10th April 2022
It was a big health
fortnight this fortnight. As per usual I still felt weary and fatigued and
anxious, and between Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th March I
developed a stinking cold. I went from that pre-cold run down feeling when I
went to bed Monday night to waking up on Tuesday feeling headachy, hot and a
massively runny nose, the full gamut. But at least I was working from home for
this week, I could just wrap u warm and work from bed. On Friday (the 1st
April!!!) I was persuaded to do a LFT, as I didn’t have any of the three big
symptoms (at the time) I assumed it wasn’t Covid, but it was, the LFT was very positive:
…which did shock me. Mainly because I managed to avoid a getting a positive test for two years (although maybe that’s because most of the LFT just used a nose swabs and not throat and nose swabs, like the one that gave a positive result) and because I had been out.
Once to get a new laptop
from work, as the screen on the old one broke, and once to do a big food and
other stuff shop. I had worn a mask and tried to keep socially distant, but I
still felt guilty that I might have spread Covid and infected others. All I
could think about was the people I’d seen and interacted with, did I infect
them, did I catch it from them!?! The annoying thing is a day or two after I
tested positive, they announced seven “new” main symptoms of Covid, most of
which I had!
The odd thing is
that when I took the LFT I was feeling a bit better, it felt like the cold had
broken, but once I got the positive result I felt worse. I’m not sure if that’s
down to how Covid works, that there are peaks and troughs, or if it was a
psychological response to knowing I had a more serious disease. Or I did I have
a cold and then caught Covid? Who knows, the main thing I remember from having
Covid is the feeling of continuous fatigue and the vivid, weird daydreams
whenever I closed my eyes and rested or tried to sleep at night. So vivid and
so weird!!!
I had been working
through the cold, but when it became Covid I decided to take sick leave, to
concentrate on getting better. I’ve heard lots of stories about how trying to
power through Covid can exacerbate Covid symptoms. And by the end of the second
week I did feel much better and ready to get back to work and got my two
negative results (on Tuesday 5th and Wednesday April):
…and in other health news on Friday 8th April I got a letter from the Hospital confirming that my recent heart tests (a CT Coronary Angiogram and a Transthoracic Echocardiogram) showed nothing of concern and that my GP should book me in for some lung function tests. At least it’s narrowing things down, I think the worse outcome would be that my symptoms are just anxiety/anxiety attacks, because that would mean that the problem is in my head and is forever, waiting to strike at any moment, whereas if I do have a physical illness, it would be something that could be treated and then forgotten about. Anyway before I tested positive (Thursday 31st March) my new Chuck T’s arrived and compare them to how knackered my old ones were after roughly ten to eleven months of daily use (e.g. very knackered!!!):
…and while I thought I just had a stinking cold I picked up these New Comic Book Day gems:
…and the latest Lego Jurassic World magazine for the mini T-Rex:
…and while I was convalescing I, now that the series has concluded, re-read all of ‘Moonshine’:
…which was a fun, deeply noir read. Lots of horror (both psychology and physical), bad guys doing bad guy things, femme fatales femme fataling and anti-heroes caught in the middle with no good options. I also re-watched ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘The Initiation’:
…’Shaun of the Dead’ is still enjoyable, although the more I rewatch it, the more familiar I am with the gags, the more I notice the acting, the dramatic elements, the set design, etc. And ‘The Initiation’ is one of the first films I can remember watching and is an excellent starter slasher to watch. It’s got all the elements, horny teenagers, a mysterious past traumatic event, gratuitous nudity, cool kills, everything you need! I also watched ‘Quatermass 2’:
…which was a fun ‘50s sci-fi adventure, with perhaps the weirdest thing being how people behaved in the ‘50s, the respect for authority and the social class distinctions, when seen through modern eyes. But it’s still a fun adventure of invading aliens defeated by good old British daring do! I also watched ‘Gangs of London’:
…which was a weird watch. As it’s from Gareth Evans I was expecting a lot more action, but it’s a lot more noirish and twisty. Although there is action, and it is spectacular. Well worth a watch. And I also watched ’Who Killed The KLF?’:
…which tells the story of the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu aka The KLF and the aftermath of the band aka the burning of a million pounds. It’s a great documentary that covers the band’s history (mostly without getting it wrong or maybe creating a new mythology using the old adage of printing the legend not the truth!) and gets over what made them so fun and different from other bands of the time (and now!). I also picked up some meagre Lottery winnings:
…and the postman delivered these goodies:
…I got the Manic’s CD for the Chemical Brothers remix of ‘Everything Must Go’, which is epic, retaining the emotion of the song while moving the feet and hips. And I got Sniper’s ‘Dirty Harry EP’ because their ‘Crossfader Dominator’ is a monster of a bug beat tune and any song that samples Lalo Schifrin’s ‘Dirty Harry’ is starting strong and Sniper’s ‘Dirty Harry’ is a great track that adds some hip-hoppness to Schifrin’s ‘Dirty Harry’ that grooves like you cruising round the streets of ‘70s San Francisco. And I got a second MacReady figure:
…initially I thought I was getting a duplicate of the figure I already had, so that I could have one in the box and one out, but this is a different version, the Station Survival version and not the Outpost 31 version. So I guess I have the dilemma of do I open both or get an extra version of both so that I can have one in box an done out of each version?!?!?
…and I did the first
week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a pretty normal start, with us have to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 22). The little grey cells were on good, but not great form (like we missed ‘Zion’ from ‘the kingdom of heaven’) and the grid wasn’t too chewy. The only ones we stumbled on were not knowing that ‘Epstein’ was the ‘sculptor of Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris’ and that ‘Rwanda’s capital’ is ‘Kigali’, let down by our old nemesis geography…
…Tuesday’s grid went terribly, we woke up with a stinking cold (and a negative LFT), the little grey cells were done in, and we just couldn’t get a grip on the grid. We had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (six out of 26) and a chuck of those six I think we would have gotten under normal circumstances, like ‘amendment’ from ‘statement added to or revising a proposal’, but we did learn that ‘derv’ is ‘diesel fuel’…
…Wednesday’s word puzzle goes much better than expected, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). The cold is still stinking and the little grey cells run down, which is why we missed ‘porous’ from ‘permeable’ and ‘promising’ from ‘up-and-coming’, but we took our time, went slow and steady and aced the rest of the grid…
…Thursday’s grid went even better, using the slow and steady approach we tots aced the grid and didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues. Either the cold is getting better, the clues easier or cold medicine has a crossword solving performance enhancing effect…
…Friday’s grid goes almost as well, only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues. It must be the ole pseudoephedrine sharpening up the little grey cells, meaning that we were able to pull ‘evensong’ from ‘vespers’ out of the recesses of my memory or that Futura is a ‘font’, and we only stumbled on not knowing that ‘beriberi’ is a ‘disease causing inflammation of the nerves and heart failure’…
…we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23) for Saturday’s grid, which, all things consider, went exceptionally well and we learnt that a ‘coxswain’ is a ‘crew member who never does a stroke’. And by all things I mean that my stinking cold turns out to have been Covid (or I’ve got a cold and Covid!), as I was still feeling rough, I did a second LFT and it came up so positive you could see it from space! It’s a good thing that I kept up social distancing and wearing a mask when out and about in public places, but I do feel a little annoyed that I managed to dodge it for two years and got it now and I’ve slightly fallen into a rabbit hole of wondering how and when I got it and if I’ve passed it on, with a slight dash of pissed off-ness that our Government is doing everything to increase transmission and case numbers (such as getting rid of legislation, free tests, and other supportive measures)…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a surprising excellent start, we only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues! Surprising as we assumed that getting Covid would hammer the little grey cells, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. Or the clues are getting easier? Or because we’re resting up, we have more time to spend on the clues? Or I’m at the tail end of having Covid? Either way, we did learn that ‘productive farmland’ is ‘arable’ and we’re left a little confused by how ‘this size is rather small’ is a clue for ‘pint’, which I only got because of the intersecting letters and a good guess…
…Tuesday’s grid goes pretty damn well, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). And we got our first negative LFT, which is a relief. Although we do have a teeny bit of brain fog, as we couldn’t get ‘derelict’ from ‘ruined’ and we forgot that the pointy bits of forks are called ‘tines’…
…Wednesday’s grid goes awesomely as we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 23 clues. A clean sweep and a second negative LFT, how could this day get better! Plus, the brain fog seems to be lifting as we were able to recall ‘apogee’ from the back of the little grey cells from the clue ‘climax’…
…Thursday’s grid keeps up the excellent awesomeness, as we only had to cheat on one of the 25 clues. I am feeling groggy and fatigued, pretty much all the time, with chest pains and shortness of breath coming and going, but regardless of this, the little grey cells have been on fire this week! And we learnt that Clio and Thalia are ‘Muses’…
…and we stumbled a little with Friday’s grid, we had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21), as I think the Covid aftermath has finally caught up with us. We had no way of knowing or guessing ‘hydrangea’ from ‘woody shrub with large, sometimes globe-shaped flower heads’, as our botany knowledge is v limited, but we should have gotten ‘overtone’ from ‘hint’ and ‘historic’ from ‘significant’, as we had the intersecting letters, but we couldn’t make that final reach through the brain fog to the answer. Or maybe the little grey cells are just burnt out…
…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a sweet note, as we only had to cheat on one of the 24 clues. It took a little bit of extra time, but the little grey cells managed to sort through all the clues, only stumbling on not knowing that the ‘Aegean’ is ‘part of the Mediterranean between Europe and Asia’. Aside from being let down by our lack of geography knowledge a storming week, especially with the Covid brain fog…
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