Grey morning (probably, I didn’t see it), becoming hot and sunny in the afternoon.
Are you sitting comfortably? Right, then I’ll begin.
So here is a little puzzler to start the day. What condition is it that I’ve got that completely incapacitates me, keeping me from working & playing, and makes me thoroughly miserable? It’s not my bad back – although that tries every so often; it’s not my tennis elbow, nor my RSI. It’s not my sciatica which I get from time to time. It’s not a cold (or even man flu), or any other sort of fever or headache or migraine or whatever.
Give up? Well it’s a problem of a delicate nature, so don’t read on if you’re squeamish or sensitive to graphic descriptions of pain.
It’s hemorrhoids!
I don’t know where they came from (ha ha) but yesterday, between making a cherry crumble and going to bed I started to get an almighty pain … “down there” …. and as a result I didn’t really get any sleep last night. I knew what it was of course because I have had them in the past, but nothing as big or as painful as this. It was excruciating.
I tried to get out of bed this morning but it was clear I wasn’t going to be able to have a normal day because it hurt standing, walking, bending and sitting. Lying down was just about okay, so I just had to lay in bed into the afternoon. I found some ointment in my comprehensive first-aid box (with a ‘use-by 2004’ label – yeah as if that was going to put me off!) and I took some anti-inflammatory pills in the hope something might anti-inflame, but otherwise I was completely incapacitated for most of the day.
It was a sunny afternoon, so I thought I MUST drag myself out of bed for some of the day. I put out the deckchair, sat in that and started reading a book and playing guitar to take my mind off things a bit. During a particularly bad rendition of “So Lonely”, by The Police I heard someone call from around the corner. At first I thought it might be someone from the French musicians union to complain (or complement!), but it was an English voice calling hello. It was my English neighbour ‘Ken’, bringing some post for me that had been delivered to his house by mistake. Ken’s not his real name (I don’t think), but I can’t remember his real name and he looks like a Ken to me. He speaks (a lot) in a slightly Yorkshire accent, although I don’t think he’s from Yorkshire, but one or two counties down from that – you know, he’s a northerner (I think Nottinghamshire or Lincolnshire or wherever).
He didn’t want to stop for a drink because he said he had a barbeque to attend to, but it didn’t stop him chatting for about a half hour in which he covered every topic under the sun and told me everything about his life, but didn’t draw breath or find out anything about me. Just the way I like it actually.
Went to bed early, and started watching Angela’s Ashes, which Ilka’s parents had sent me because I asked for some German-speaking/subtitled DVD’s that could assist my German learning. I haven’t seen the film before, and I watched it in German with German subtitles just to see if anything made sense at all. It seems quite easy to follow although not very uplifting with death, depression, gloom, rain, poverty and misery throughout the most part. It almost made me feel comforted that my only pain was piles. Almost, but not quite.
