Monday 20th December 2021

Occasionally, I suffer from migraines.

Not badly, I get no headaches, just the aura in vision, which when bad can make me take to my bed for half an hour or so.

I got a mild one on Sunday, needing me to turn off the laptop through the afternoon and again in the evening.

It was Jools who said I needed to go out, get some fresh air and stop computering.

I agreed.

And I quite looked forward to a wander in the country.

What happened was I got a massive migrane as I walked up to the Monument. As bad as I've ever had, so I made it to a bench on the grassed area, sat down with my eyes closed and it passed in 15 minutes, but I was washed out.

Back home I was so tired, and was really struggling to stay awake, so I searched online for "migraine", sticking only to the NHS site, as all the rest would tell me I had brain cancer and ten minutes to live.

Take pain killers it said.

But even before that, I felt a change, and not so tied. The pills did me no harm, but I wasn't tired anymore.

Which is good

Jools was back to work, of course, and would be up at five and out of the house before six. In fact she had been checking work mails on Sunday evening, so she was up to speed come this morning.

Which makes sense.

I, however, was a man of leisure even more than usual, with no mail box to monitor, I could stare out of the windows, listen to music, watch train and woodturning videos on all day long, if I wanted.

Jools left, so I made a loaf, and made myself breakfast of fruit and yogurt, before doing something, I know not what, for three hours.

But the bread was risen and baked, I had to pop to the post office, and so I thought where could I go from there.

Well, St Maggies is well served with footpaths, so I could find one less travelled and see what there was to see.

Which is what I did.

It would be easy to hibernate under a duvet on the sofa, eating crisps and Christmas cake.

But I have three days off before Jools is done with work for the year, and so on Monday, I forced myself out for a long walk, out over two hours, into the village then out via a little used path, which was ankle deep in mud, making slow going and taking twice as many slithering steps as usual.

But I kept on going.

From the post office I doubled back to the village pond behind, then before i reached the school, took a track through the woods to another marked path that runs along the edge of fields. A poor fine looking horse, looked at me sadly as I walked a field away, wish I could have given its nose a rub, but there were fences and a high gate between us.

From there up to Salisbury Road, through the grand houses with their sea views and to the Monument.

I checked for orchid rosettes and was rewarded with four fresh Early Spiders! All ready for the 2022 season.

And then back home, down through Brockhill Farm and down onto Otty Bottom Road over the tops of the downs, where I disturbed a large flock of seagulls, a twitcher told me they were all Herring Gulls.

No Herrings in them fields, guys.

My back had not been happy all walk, but was OK going downhill, which meant the slither down the Dip was fine, but the other side was grim indeed. But I did it, past the hens in the chicken run at Fleet House, thn up past the Pig's Copse and to home.

12,5000 steps, two and a half hours gone, and covered in mud.

I gave my walking shoes a Viking burial and vowed it was now boots for the rest of the winter!

Back inside I had a pint of squash, then made a huge cuppa and cut a crust off the loaf, smothered it with butter and apricot jam and sttled down to listen to the radio.

My legs were achey, but in a good way, I told them.

Somehow, I made the afternoon slip by too.

Soon it was time to think about dinner, and because we had eaten poor food all weekend,t he request from Jools was for "vegetables", I made fritters.

Everytime they taste slightly different, I added a little more salt, a bit more lemon juice and see what happened.

What happened was they were delicious, but we didn't eat them all, meaning Jools could take some for lunch on Tuesday and Wednesady.

After we tidy up, we find that Marc is off air due to a COVID alert, so we sit in silence until the EFL game starts, and Blades blunted the Cottagers in the Fulham v Sheffiled UTD game.

By that time it was twenty to ten, and proper tired.