Friday 14th December 2018

Like every morning, I wake up and try to move, to see if it still hurts. It does.

Not only does it still hurt, it hurts lower down my leg now, and within an hour, my allergies started up, going crazy.

Anyway, it was Friday, the weekend on the horizon, and no matter how bad Friday was, I could recover over the weekend.

I should have been in aarhus for a monthly meeting. My back put pay to that, but through the wonders of modern technology, I could join in at nine through Skype, though no one would see my eyes rolling, which is just as well.

I have breakfast and then go for a shower so to be ready at eight for some pre-meeting meetings. As you do. I do the end of week admin, and I am all set.

The meeting lasted two and a half hours, meaning it ended in Denmark at nearly one in the afternoon meaning they missed dinner. I went into the kitchen, fired up the frying pan and cooked two slices of fried bread and two eggs bubbled and spat until they were done.

I eat lunch, catch up on mails and really I feel that I am on top of work. So, finally I book the car for next week, set my out of office message, and am packing the office away as Jools returns from work.

I can hardly breathe and an limping badly. I must seem a pretty poor thing. So, Jools makes a brew and cuts a generous slice of Christmas cake. And we are sitting down to eat it when the doorbell goes.

Our neighbours told us at the weekend that the overflow from the loft was leaking, and we spent the last four days trying to get a plumber to come round. With no luck. And then Jools remembered one of the people who moved in on Station Road had put a card through our door, so I called him up, and so it was him with a bag of tools.

Twenty minutes later it was done, and jokingly I mentioned the bathroom sink that we have been unable to get hot water out of for some 18 months. Oh, I'll put a new set of taps on that he says. He drove off to the supply shop, returning with a shiny mixer tap, and in half an hour that was fixed to.

In the meantime I drove myself down to the chiropractor for another torture session. I had now strained my hamstring, so he began to bend me in some new shapes. It hurt, but then it had to.

Back home we had the house to ourselves now the plumbing was fixed.

My allergies were pretty bad, and Jools reminded me I had bought a magic box thing that was supposed to treat allergies without drugs. I put it together then put two glowing plugs up my nose. I didn't hold out much hope, and indeed didn't seem to do any good. But I had tried.

I cook burgers for dinner, sit at the computer to write the blog, but in truth no matter how I sat, I was not comfortable. At seven I gave up and switched everything off, go up to the bedroom to lay in bed and read.

Which is what I did. I sped through a hundred or so pages of Born to Run, tracking from Bruce's first band right to the start of what was to become the E Street Band.

And at ten, I was done. Jools was already asleep, so I joined her.