Thursday 1st April 2021

All Fools Day.

Gout.

Gout is seen now as something of a joke, something that fat old rich men get.

While this might be partially true, others can get it too. I had a friend, Matt, and he suffered really bad with gout, and had to balance a pint of beer with a pint of water to jeep the crystals flowing out of his body.

I got gout last time seven years ago, whilst on holiday in the New Forest, I went to hosptial because I thought I had broke my toe, and the nurse said that any blow hard enough to break a bone in your big toe, you would remember it.

A lot of water and some ibuprufen and it went away.

Since then I have had twinges, but it usually went away. Always went away.

And then this week.

Seems that on the first three days of the week, not drinking enough so I didn't need to find a bush to go behind when out built up a series of dehydration events that meant on Wednesday evening my toe began to hurt, and as I was about to go to bed and didn't want to get up in the night, drank nothing.

And so, during the night it got worse and worse, meaning that by the time I got up Thursday, I could barely walk.

I do know what to do, so began to drink water, squash, coffee in order to flush the crystals that cause the pain, away.

After a couple of hours, walking was bearable, but the instant cure I got seven years ago failed to happen, so I drank more through the day, and took tablets, all to make it stop hurting. Which it did, for the most part.

What this did mean was that I did very little of anything, other than sit at the table with my leg raised, drinking and watching either podcasts or tram videos.

There are worse ways to spend a day, of course, and the weather wasn't very nice; cold and breezy, so not much to photograph in the poor light. But again, not the way I wanted to spend a day of holiday, doing nothing at all. But even if the weather was good, I couldn't get a shoe on my left foot, and weating the bright pink crocs was only just bearable.

So, there is the day as mapped out.

I did put the bins out once Jools had left for work, and collected them, and for the neighbours once they had been emptied after lunch, putting them into their garden or drives.

And back inside for yet another drink and watch another episode of A word in Your Attic, or starting again on the tram videos.

I have toast and marmalade for breakfast, left over soup for lunch, then make a sourdough loaf with the bag of mix to go with caprese for dinner.

I should have skipped booze, but caprese demands wine.

Demands wine.

And that was the day, really.

No football to watch, Marc Riley is back on the wireless this week, so there is that, and once he has finished, time for bed, where I was joined by the ever delightful, Miss Cleo for the night.