...between Guadalquivir and old Seville

18/09/2015
Glenfinnan to Inverie

If you recall the story I spent the night having nightmares in which I lost my wife and my job.  Then i woke up and found out it was true.  And my knee hurt.
I was getting good at strapping it up, so did so swiftly then went to talk to John at the station.  He said could get me on the outward steam train to Mallaig.  He was as good as his word and I got a seat with a charming family from Caste Cary. Lovely people, lovely kid.  The countryside on that journey is fabulous.  You have to try it.
The only flaw for me was that the carriages they were using in the museum were ones I remember riding in as a child in the BR Western Region.  That made me feel old.

Mallaig station

Mallaig, at the far end, was a lovely fishing and ferry port.  Full of tourists but it would be hypocritical to complain.  I got some fish and chips then took the ferry to Inverie.

The packet to Inverie

The approach to Inverie goes past a lovely set of pink gypsum rocks fronted by a statue known to the locals as Plastic Mary.

Inverie in the distance

Plastic Mary on her rock

The sea loch you head into is wonderful, sheltered glassy waters and hills around.  The whitewashed cottages of Inverie in the distance.  The local Co-Op where I had stocked up in Mallaig had sent bag after bag of goods, and the women of Inverie were there on the dock to meet it and collect the shopping.  It felt like something from the 19th century.  the main street with its pub, cafe and shop is like something from the 18th century.  It is classic Celtic Fringe fishing village.

I was aiming to stay at the bunkhouse run by the Knoydart Foundation.  This was set up to buy up the peninsula so that the locals could run it for themselves.  Booking in is possible in advance but you can just turn up and fill a space.  There are 4 bunkrooms.  A folder by the main door has the days in it, you write your name down in a slot in a room and its yours.  I arrived at the same time as a geologist called Annie and we both signed in to Room 2.  I plumped for the only single, Annie a lower bunk.  The kitchen was extensive and well equipped, the dining room was a bit cold and uninviting.  There was a big lounge with a woodburner in it that was quite lovely.  Also showers.
Another 3 girls arrived and signed in, meaning I was sharing a room with 3 ladies.  How would they contain themselves?  The smallest room was taken up by a boisterous family whose patriarch, Gordon hailed from Leeds but had been Scottenated to Edinburgh.
Having dumped my stuff, which took the weight off my knee, I went up to the Cafe.  This, with the pub, was the only eaterie available.  The pub was booked out so I went into the Cafe and had the fish Lasagne which was remarkably good.  The ladies there were laughing and joking about which flowers to have in a bridal bouquet.  One suggested thistles and nettles.  I said Sea Buckthorn because its spiky and it stinks, which summed up my marital stuation.  I folded a few flowers for them from my stock of paper, which they really liked.  One of them was single apparently...
Anyway the day ended round a log fire in the lounge drinking whiskey with Gordon.  And so to bed.

...the tracks of my tears

Today I did French Onion Soup.

This is really easy and a wonderful warmer on cold days.  All it needs is a bit of boldness and the ability to hold back your tears.

First of all you will need some onions...

Actually you need:

3 onions
2 l stock. (In the original they would have used beef shin broth but any good quality stock works)
about 20g butterr
a teaspoon of flour
about 20ml Brandy
Black pepper to taste

To Serve:
A baguette
some grated cheese (preferably Gruyere but whatever it is it must be robustly tasty)

Peel, halve and roughly slice the onions.  This is going to hurt your eyes.

Select a pan...either a really good non stick one or else one where you don't care about the bottom because it is going to get caramelised.

Melt the butter in the pan and heat till it foams and crackles.  Throw in all the onions and toss them in the butter.  Keep the heat high and keep the onions moving.  What will happen is that the onions will start to catch on the bottom.  The edges of the onions will go brown and so will the bottom of the pan.  Keep rubbing at this with your wooden spoon and it will transfer to the onions.  That brown is your colour and flavour.  If the bottom starts getting too brown throw in a splash of brandy and deglaze.  Then carry on.  You want all the onions to be browned but not burnt.

Deglaze one last time then sprinkle the flour over the top

Stir it in then add he stock.  Grind in black pepper.  then some more.  Then some more.  It is almost impossible to over pepper this.

Simmer for 20 mins stirring to combine in the brown from the bottom.

To serve grill a slice of Baguette, good and thick, on both sides, then sprinkle cheese on one side and grill again.  Put in a bowl.

Ladle over the soup.  Give it time to soak in and then nom.

This soup was served to the porters at Les Halles to warm them up on chilly Paris mornings.  It is deeply addictive.  If your soup isnt sweet and dark brown you weren't brave enough at the frying stage.

Just because you look good, doesn't make you right

OK so much has been going on as I earlier said.  This has meant that I lack the time or the mood to blog very much.  But I have been thinking about it and here is a blog post that was triggered by yesterday being International Men's Day.

You know what is coming don't you? Well let's get some baggage out of the way.  Yes there is also an International Women's Day.  It is on March 8th 2016.  I think it's a Tuesday. Yay women.  However...

On March the 8th here is a list of things I would expect to see given the behaviour of SOME women (actually quite a lot if twitter is any judge) and SOME men (ditto) and quite a lot of charities.

I would expect there to be a massive outcry amongst Twitterati saying women have no problems and do not deserve a day.

I would expect andrist groups to point out that women have massive advantages in (insert field here) and so should shut up and get on with it.

I would expect the main causes of death in women to be derided and dismissed, the stuff of jokes.

And, and this one boils my piss, I would expect a testicular cancer charity to hijack the day with the help of a second rank comedian turned columnist. .

Now this one is very clever.  You see this is a cynical marketing wheeze of the first order, and whilst you cannot blame the charity involved, after all charities need publicity and they need to get their names in the paper as often as possible, it is about as low as you can go morally in my opinion.

Why?  Because it is basically the perfect crime.  They are using a day which is trying to focus on MALE diseases like testicular and prostate cancer, which are notoriously late to diagnosis because men feel they shouldn't bother people about trivia like not pissing or having one ball bigger than the other, they are taking that day and making it about ladybollocks.  And they are doing it in such a way that it looks like they are saying thank you.

Well BOLLOCKS. (and prostates. and suicide while we are at it). Anyone involved in fundraising knows about the pinkification of disease.  If it affects women it gets a pink ribbon and massive attention.  I mean sure men have things like myoddballs but this is very small fry compared to say, Moonwalk.  And have you ever tried to get involved in an event like that if you are a man? You might as well turn up in a t shirt saying "Hi, I am Mr Rapey, would you like to see my etchings?".

 I suffer from a disease which is overwhelmingly female.  The support group meetings look like Jessie J concerts, only without the gay guys there for a laugh (shame). In fact the solely male issues are so poorly represented and the information so scarce that it has led me to be treated for several diseases I don't have just because I wasn't aware of an aspect of the one I do.  And before you say it, it has to be me aware of it because it is so rare the Doctor Googles it.  In fact the all-wise Rich Boden  has put together a network of male Zebras just so we can compare penes, as it were.  The last thing men need is to have more of their issues sidelined by the pink avalanche.

I hate cynical marketing at the best of times, which is why John Lewis, M and S and Sainsburies have all had the banhammer come down on my twitter account.  But this was simply filthy.  All involved should hang their heads.

Yes, men are advantaged.  Yes society has been and to some extent (less every year thank goodness) still is patriarchal.  But does that mean we should sentence men to death for it?  because by hijacking space yesterday, or making jokes about men whinging, or contributing to the idea that sharing and complaining and asking for help is not something men should do, that is what you are doing.  You are killing your husbands, brothers, fathers. Every misandrist joke, every use of the incredibly sexist word "mansplaining", every attempt to subvert a day to your charities needs when it has nothing whatever to do with you is killing someone you know.  Just think about that Mr Herring, next time you want to push an agenda.

Tear down dotted line.....to reveal D-cups

OK so as you know I have been working my way towards doing my bike test.  Today another hurdle cleared. I passed the theory test.
I passed by a reasonable margin, 49/50 on the multi-guess and 53/75 ( pass mark 44) on the Hazard Perception part.  So yes, I passed. But I am deeply pissed off.
I am, as they say, on the Spectrum.  An Aspie. This affects the way I deal with language.  In my case it means hyperprecise definitions most of the time.  But I am also aphantasic (do not see pictures in my head).  Couple those together....
5 of the 50 questions are a case study, a description of a series of events.  Now say to me that someone pulls away, turns right at a roundabout, drives over a donkey etc. and I cannot picture it.  I could do it, but not see it.  My normal recourse from 46 years of dealing with this is to draw it.  I asked if the test people could provide me with a blank piece of paper and a pencil. No. Because something.
I explained the issue, and they said (nicely I have to say) that I could have it described to me, but that was it. Description doesn't help.  So no adjustment at all.
But OK I passed.
Next the use of language. A clearway sign was one of the questions.  what does it mean you cannot do.  Two options were Stop or Wait.  Now those to an Aspie are linked subsets.  That was the one I got wrong. But putting those two answers was not taking into account language issues at all.

Now the Hazard Perception. I had 15 marks disallowed for unacceptable clicking.  This was simply incorrect. I clicked when I saw a hazard. I pointed out to the test operative, before the mark came in, that those decisions needed to be appealed as they were wrong, I had not broken the rules.  A person looking at the data would see that.  There is no appeal.  This is simply unacceptable and a very unsafe practice. I suggest that the DVSA uses it as a money raiser. So given I had 15 marks disallowed by SkyNet 53/60 is not too bad.  The issue, as I know from the practice software, is experience plus Aspie focus/awareness means I spot the hazards too early. Before the machine thinks it is possible. So I click multiple times as it develops.  A better system would be to hold down the button until the hazard stops, surely?

And while we are at it, whoever is driving in those clips is a loony.  Accelerates like Stirling Moss, drives down the centre of the road....I mean OK they live in a town where every pedestrian hurls themselves suicidally under your wheels after having thrown their children and dog there first, but still.

And the inhabitants are stereotypes.  Those who know me know I tend to go for stereotypes. Give me a big butch guy or a woman with norks the size of barrage balloons and I am happy.  Well unless the programmers tailored that specifically for me as a distractor I think the DVSA should go through and add in a few more realistic people.  It is particularly noticeable in the women.  It makes it easier to spot hazards because their breasts appear out from between parked cars long before they do.  But surely we aren't training people just to avoid Lara Croft?

So yay pass, Boo DVSA. do better.

this space intentionally blank

I know I have only written hike posts recently.
Simply put so much has been going on in my life, and I have been so far down, that talking about current events is beyond me.
So I will put a skeleton here.
Mrs Inky moved out
I had an operation to repair a previous error, during which they accidentally dislocated my shoulder
I found out you can never go home
Mrs Inky fired the first shot in a custody war, something I thought we would not do to each other.
I started counselling
Thats all she wrote.
With luck now I have written those down i will be able to come back and flesh them out.

ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day

interlude

17/09-18/09/2015

So there I am in a snowplough in Glenfinnan.  The weather continued fair, to be fair, and Glenfinnan itself is very pretty.  Well the Loch and the forest are.  The village is basically a one horse town that the horse converted into hotels and galloped out of on the proceeds.  No shops so staying here either means a lot of spending on hotel grub or running down my supplies.

But I definitely needed at least one days rest.  Actually paid John the Trainspotter for two nights and so was relaxing.  First I slept in.  In a bed. OK I had to use my bag but that was fine.  There was a stove I could make tea on and everything.

When I finally got up and had another god-sent shower then more tea I re-bound the knee, this time sans stick splints and headed off to see the sights.  The sights here include the Railway Museum where I was staying and the Monument.  

The Rail Museum is a perfect little station of Victorian vintage near the Glenfinnan Viaduct (famous for being used as the backdrop for Harry and Ron in the flying Ford Anglia trying to catch the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter film franchise).  It really is a good example of its type and I recommend a visit.  John clearly an enthusiast also acts as post collector, token keeper and Stationmaster for the line....which runs the Jacobite, the only scheduled steam train still running on the main line in the UK.  It typically runs Black Fives, which is slightly disappointing as they were...well...boring even back in the day.  I know it would be overkill but I would have stuck an A4 on there myself and sod the corners.

So one reason for the herds of Japanese and American tourists is the presence of the Hogwarts Express.  Though taken literally that suggests Hogwarts is in a small scottish fishing port.  Anyway it is well kept, has a small shop and I recommend a visit.

I also walked down to the Other Thing, which I had walked past the day before.  This was the reason the Merkins were here.  Because the Other Thing is the Monument, commemorating where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his banner in 1745 in the second Jacobite Rebellion.  And the Merkins love BPC and they all claim to have a clan.  ( I can talk, I actually do have a clan.  I am a Donald, more of this in later posts. )

Anyhoo this monument was set up on Donald land because the Donalds were big supporters of BPC.

For those who do not know the story here, a brief rundown.  The Stewarts (or Stuarts, spelling varies) were the hereditary kings of Scotland.  Sort of.  In fact calling them Stewarts is a bit problematic as they came down through the distaff side via Mary Queen of the Desert.  Sorry, Scots.

MQS was one of the most humped and abducted queens since Guinevere.  She had been queen of France much more than of Scotland.  She was the daughter of James V of Scotland but he died when she was 5 and a set of regents took over the throne.  As they felt they could manage quite nicely without a woman cluttering up the place they shipped her off to France as a child bride for the future Francis II of France, himself a religious loony and not too stable.  He croaked suddenly shortly after ascending the throne and so in 1661 she pootled back to Scotland, landing in Leith.

She was about as welcome as a fart in a space suit, as the regents had no intention of giving up the throne.  She married her cousin (what is it about British royalty and cousin-fancying?) Darnley and settled down to unhappy marriage.  Darnley knocked her up (it is debatable as to wether the highly religious Francis ever consummated the marriage) and she gave birth to James VI/I.  Her husband then gets murdered by Bothwell, a regent lord, who kidnaps her, takes her baby away to be reared Scottish and basically rapes her.  In an early version of Stockholm Syndrome she actually settles down with Bothwell.  Anyway in true Stewart manner she buggers up her rule magnificently, pisses everyone off and flees to England.  Elizabeth is on the throne, childless, and Mary thinks she is the heir. She first asks for shelter then leads a rebellion. Anyone with an idea of Elizabeths temper will know what happens next....Mary is banged up then executed.  Now I want you to look for a pattern here...Stewart gets near throne, behaves spectacularly stupidly and ends up deported or dead or both.

Elizabeth does actually name James her heir, and he eventually inherits despite being a bandy legged dwarf and bisexual spendthrift. (One lord at the time, commenting on the state of James budget and also his bedroom habits asked "how may we know the level of the barrel when the money disappears through diverse cocks" cocks meaning spigot (hence the other meaning) and also what it does now)

James survives Bonfire Night without too much bother though he does have a thing about witches, writing a book about them.  He also hated tobacco and Walter Raleigh.  So for a Stewart frittering the budget on rent boys and writing books on demons is a pretty successful reign.  he didnt get up to much else.  His son, Charles, was the second stupidest king England ever had.  He caused a civil war by trying to assert absolute monarchy (a belief that came from France via MQC.  England had never had an absolute monarch, even the Tudors had to keep the parliament onside).  Well actually he set off about 4 of them one after the other.  every time he made peace and signed a treaty he escaped and started it all again.  In the end Cromwell, above all a practical man, decided enough was enough and cut his head off.  When Charles II eventually got the throne he looked at the previous 2 generations, decided Grandad had it right and shagged his way through his reign with little else of note except the fire of London.  Then there was James II.  the stupidest one ever.  Again with the absolutism, using the Royal prerogative to overrule parliament.  Tried to reinstall Catholicism, which by this time was a no-hoper. Eventually his Lords got so pissed off they mounted a rebellion and removed him.  The army of William off Orange had both James daughters in it.  James tried to run away from the fight twice, had a nosebleed and buggered off to France.  nobody missed him.  We then go through Mary and Anne, James daughters and both die childless.  The English do not want another Stuart at any price so they invite a cousin, George, over from hanover....and the Haggis hits the fan.  The Scots, who hadn't 'really had to put up with the full idiocy of the Stuarts, felt nostalgic for them and wanted em back.  There was an abortive rising in 1715 which was put down and caused the founding of the Scottish road network and Fort William, and then there was BPC.  He was raised in France and had a total Monty Python French accent.  He was about as Scottish as the Queen of Englands tits but there you go.  He raised his standard at Glenfinnan.  The clans rose ( sort of.  a fair number couldnt be arsed or had a note from their mother).  He marches south and gets as far as Derby, putting the shits up George II (himself a fair soldier who was the last English king to lead troops in battle and would later die of a tricky bowel movement)...and then BPC gets the wind up, walks home, leads his army into a trap at Culloden, runs away, has it off with Flora MacDonald and goes into exile for good.

So the monument is to the congenital idiocy of the Stuarts or something.  Anyway it is pretty.

Monument visible in middle picture between tree clumps.

Anyway that exhausts the sights of glenfinnan.  Hotel dinner.  

Next day dawns. I arrange passage to Mallaig on the train the following day to Mallaig, hoping to get the ferry to Inverie and pick up the trail from there if the knee gets better.  I spend a lot of the day catching up on contacts as I can get signal here and wifi in the Hotel.  One of the editors of Science has sent an email begging for a review we started a while ago to get finished.  It is delayed because my former boss couldnt be arsed so after an exchange of emails I take it over and undertake to finish it.  Unfortunately this contact with the outer world triggers wife related nightmares and I have a very very rough night.

Anyway Genfinnan is well worth a half hour stop.

Watch it bring you to your Knees, knees I wanna watch you bleed

16/09/2015
Cona Glen to Glenfinnan

Despite tramadol and paracetamol and a good tug on the whisky, and the fact that it runs out a waterproof membrane spread on a swamp is like a memoryfoam mattress, the knee was total agony all night. Any sideways pressure gave pain and I have to sleep on my side...so no sleep.
Again the sound of rain woke me, except it was the continued efforts of the local wildlife to take a bite of Inky.  Those midges are persistent. I reapplied a support bandage to my knee, cursing the lack of a splint or brace, and started boiling water for breakfast.
Of course it is far too dangerous to use a stove in a tent, so the stove had to be outside.  Here is how it goes...
Undo mesh enough to stick arms out.  Set up stove at extreme reach.  Brush ticks off arm.
Pour water into saucepan, slam on lid.  Push arms and pan out again.  Light stove, put pan on, pull arms in brushing off midges. Close net.  Kill all midges that have made it inside.
Wait.
Feel tickling, then pain.  Remove ked from scrotum and terminate with extreme prejudice.  begin to think that Rachel Carson was a complete loony.
When water boils reach out and get pan.  repeat procedure.  This time ked heading for back of neck, Terminate with hot pan.
Pour water into dehydrated meal then make tea in pan.


...bit of a rigmarole,  and of course in the back of your mind you know sooner or latter you have to go out and join the Midge Horde.  The dehydrated meal today was Rice Pudding from Mountain House.  Personally I would have thought that one of the easier ones to get right but it was utterly vile.  Oversweet and the rice really resisted rehydration.  The midge garnish didn't help.
After a strengthening cup of midge and tea I packed up the tent.  The knee was deceptive...for 5-10 mins after rest I could use it if I was very careful about my gait.  Thereafter it was a screaming ball of agony.  Left lateral collateral ligament I suspect.  I set off supporting that knee with two sticks.  of course that meant the other leg took the full weight and the right hip was not amused, but in a background grumbly way.  The weather continued lovely, blue sky, sun and fleecy clouds.  just enough breeze stirred up to inhibit our Insectile Overlords. And the views were lovely.  The track winding up the glen, the waterfalls, the fucking mountain...
You may wonder, injured as I was, why I did not go back.  Simple answer was that it was 2 days hike to civilisation back, one day forwards, with luck.  I ha seen nobody on the glen trail so sitting and waiting for help while the knee stiffened was a no go, and no phone signal at all.  Essentially it was walk on or face slow exsanguination by midge. You know how they tell you solo hiking is dangerous? This is why.
Oddly, well oddly if you are neurotypical, I was not upset at all.  Well I was irritated with whicheever tit designed the human knee, but the situation was fine.  because it was just a problem.  Look, evaluate, assign priorities.  LEAP methodology is an Aspie go to.  Spock was scampering around wagging his tail.  The problem was this...

Not an encouraging path, despite the lovely bits of low cloud swirling down the glen.  But onward it was.  I knew I had to cross a 350m saddle at the end and that the path degraded somewhat.  So on I went.
Normally walking has a rhythm.  Any hiker will tell you you fall into your natural cadence and it eats the miles.  Well here I was with no rhythm to speak of due to the improvised crutches.  To improve things further one of the parachutes, designed to stop the walking poles sinking into bog or snow, had been sucked off (lucky thing) by Camp BogMidge.  I didn't notice till later.  Also after 5-10 mins the knee would build into a ball of agony and I would have to find a boulder or a sheep to sit on to rest it before starting again.  I was sweating like two pigs in a sauna, nasty shock-sweat. So I was getting through my water pretty fast.  This continued to the head of the main track which ended in a sheep fold.  What my problem now was was this...

I had to get over that ridge, down the other side and then 5 km to Glenfinnan and aid.
There was a path, don't get me wrong.  I wish I had had energy enough to   take photos of the ascent.  The actual 350m ascent would not have bothered me at all if I was well.  But at this point even after rest I could not put my foot to the ground.  A 350m vertical hop is no joke.  But even if well the state of the path was something I would gripe about.  We had had at least a week of dry weather but the path was basically a stream.  There were butterwort and sundew, plants of peat bogs and pond margins, actually growing in the path.

You sank in a couple of inches whenever you couldnt find a rock to step on.  And it was one hiker wide so pole hopping was tricky.  I had to look where to place every pole.
Add to that I was out of water apart from a tiny slurp and dehydrating.  The water on the path was so peaty even my filter would not clear it and so I was desperately looking for a clear spring or stream.  That ascent is a memory of pain, sweating, shivering and cold.  it was a hot day but I was getting shockier by the minute.  But I knew that the only way was up, baby.  So it was hop step hop step rest repeat...
eventually, within 50m of the saddle I found a spring.  And I made hot sweet tea.  Much hot sweet tea.
I know that you should not do this.  Experts tell you never to give hot sweet tea to someone going into shock.  Frankly experts can snort my sweaty, 3 day hiking taint. Hot sweet heaven, helping down 2 fruesli bars because my blood sugar was getting very low and I knew this was the dangerous bit.  Packing away the tea things I made off.  Long John Inky.
Reaching the saddle was soooo good. But then...like many saddles this was a watershed, and this one swampier than many I have seen.  The path down to glenfinnan sloped gently here but it was as good a specimen of upland peat bog as I have ever seen, and I have been pulled out of a few.  On another day the stratification of the peat, the standing water with its limited wildlife, the multitude of moss species and acid loving plants would have fascinated me.  Today I was mainly focussing on the fact that I had one leg and one pole, as the other one sank 2 feet at every attempt to put it down.
This really was where I became adept at using sphagnum moss species to help me place my feet.  At Camp Bog Midge I had cheated and used the fact that heather is not a bog plant to help me find relative ground.  here there was no heather, and no tussock grass which elsewhere I would use.
This is the sort of thing....

Now you see the red patches?  those are your friend.  Honestly.  That moss, Sphagnum capillifolium, the acute leaved bog moss looks like this close up:

It prefers drier feet.  Given an option, tread on that.  Need I tell you the trial and error involved in that information?  Anyway after the ascent having to cross the Dead Marshes was not fun.  at least they were cut by streams with clear water so I didnt run low again.  But by this time it was 2.30pm.

I had lunch because I was running on empty again.  Then I started on down once more.

After the Dead Marshes the path began to slope more quickly and to improve, though it was badly eroded in places.  Here I began to meet mountain bikers who were walking up in order to ride down. I suspect these people are more than a little deranged.

getting down to the glen bottom took me 4 hours, and the light was starting to fade.  The path on the valley floor seemed a hell of a lot longer than billed but eventually I made it to the monument, and its visitor centre.  Which was closed.  And I found out that Glenfinnan village is 50m up the valley side .

I actually passed out from pain twice hopping up that road, each time as I sat for a rest.  In the end I got to the station which was billed as having a bunkhouse, only to find a sign saying bunkhouse full.

I hopped down the road to the hotel...also full.  But the lady said to knock for John at the station and ask as sometimes he could help.

John, bless him, runs the station museum and bunkhouse.  He is one of those guys with no personality but a heart of pure gold,  He saw the state of me (covered in mud to the waist, bandage and splint made of two sticks on the knee, white, pale, sweating, grazed forehead from passing out on the road) and said he could put me in the volunteers quarters for a couple of days, unless I preferred to be taken to A and E.  I knew that A and E would involve long discussions about Ehlers Danlos and a lot of aggro, only to be prescribed rest and painkillers, which I had.  So I gratefully payed him for the volunteers quarters.  I got in, stowed my stuff, undressed, rinsed the socks and put everything to dry on the radiators (RADIATORS!!!!) and had a hot shower in actual hot water which was hot and watery.  All I needed was a couple of Ben Cohens and all would be right with the world.  the volunteers quarters, by the way were here:

Yes gentle reader, I was showering in a snow plough.

After making tea I assessed my needs.  My food supplies were low and I knew that the hotel had a resto...so instead of allowing myself sleep I hopped across and ate the Fish and Chips of the Gods.

I may also have had a beer or two.

Then hopped home to the plough, crawled into bed, washed tramadol down with whisky and slept the sleep of the just-been-rescued-from-shocky-death-by-a-trainspotter.

I'm living in a powder keg and throwing off sparks..

.S So anyway life goes on . It seems we cannot stop it.
this la st week has been a bugger by any Standard and I for onewant it to stop. Observnrt readers will know that Mrslnky Moved out on Saturday thereby putting an end to the horrid infighting. But as you in the real world know this means a lot of expense and a lot of emotion.
To be honest I an not feeling this yetbecause there is so much to do. Spock is having a great time working out the logical place to put paprika and where George would look best. George has been iIl so l hope the change will do him good. God knows what will happen when I run out of jobs to do.
Anyway that was the end of the week,  started with me at a conference and shaking like a leaf because Boss was there. In the end he literally ran from the room to avoid me. l was so upset by this it did not let  me enjoy  the rest of the conference. So then I got train and taxi home. Next day I was meant to be doing my Bike Theory test. No wallet.. No licence. Arg!
The test people would not let me do it without so that Was money downthe drain. I have rebooked for the 12th.
So then 1 start cancelling cards. When the taxi driver turns up with my wallet.
Big sigh of relief.
then I had food poisoning for a 2 day vomit fest.
Anyway the process of moving Mrslnky out has been trying on many levels. Only now does she realise the cost of this process. What I and she had lost.
So roll on surgery

Leaves are brown, and the sky...

It has been a bad few days.
Last week I had a meeting with my IDT where we agreed that there was nothing they could do but play with the meds.  The shrrink was also a bit blunt about the fact that my Aspergers is not remediable. Or almost certainly not.
The shrink and I then plotted what our next move would be , med-wise, which looks like thyroxine.  So he asked for a thyroid test.  I was going to the GP anyway because of my knee so added in a flu jab, an alteration to the med scheds and asked for a thyroid test.  GP pointed out my thyroid function was being tested regularly, i had been boringly normal for 3 years and that had the shrink logged in properly he could see that.
So ho hum.
Anyway the reason for the search is that I am not stable.  I hesitate to say i am bipolar.  I think I am unipolar but brittle.  The Bupropion has helped a bit at higher dose, i think.  But I am getting lots of panic and depression at very short notice.  Walking down a street the other day I was fine at the top, shaking and crying at the bottom.  The shaking thing is an issue.  I am getting marked tremor that comes on at times.  I mentioned this to the shrink and he kindly suggested that as I had been having a gin and tonc at night as a hypnotic it was probably the D.T.s.
Cunt.
So I did a dry week, absolutely no difference except the normal, which is that sleep without hypnotics gives me nightmares.  All night.
So a week of early waking for naught, although I did find out what the shakes were.  They are an exaggerated form of fatigue tremor.  They come on after I have used muscles for a bit.  I think this may be a bupropion side effect.
Mrsinky has found a house to move to.  Given that we had a blazing row, largely because my low mood coincided with her being cross, but my mood went so low I do not know how I stayed alive.  Rang the emergency line for the first time in ages.
well we got through, and now she is moving out.  this makes me very sad because i love her, but also relieved because we were making each other ill.
well it had to happen.
On the plus side I have managed to gym a couple of times.  I started on some leg exercises and got back into doing deadlifts.  I now remember why all the men I Know who are into deadlifts have such wonderful taut arses.  God it works your glutes.
I also have done more bike lessons and continue to improve.  I still need practice but its better.  Today went out in the rain and got the coldest bollocks I have ever had.  Jesus. Took me ages to thaw them out.  Must get better protective clothing.
I am still stuck with the untreatable Aspergers thing.  I went on a couple of dates that were so bad people bailed early.  Was such a blow.  I know I am Asperging them but cannot help it.
Arg.

Exodus 10:14

Cona Glen

15/09/2015

I woke to the sound of gentle rain at 8am.  Well ok to recount how the night went, after having a cup of Swiss tea (In Switzerland I found it hard to keep fresh milk at my digs- I never used enough and so it was always either accumulating or going off.  So I got used, in extremis, to making a strong pot of tea then squeezing in condensed milk from a tube.  This makes a good cup of builders tea.  They have started doing these tubes in the UK so I took some along-invaluable.) with midge croutons, and settling down to read my kindle (I reasoned its low battery usage would make it last- I was right.  Kindle Paperwhite FTW) and to have a few hits on the half bottle of scotch in my pack.  That extra weight was worth every drop.  Soon sleepy due to hard work and the distillers art I settled down properly to sleep.  Sadly the designers of "mummy"type sleeping bags have a very strange idea of anatomy.  Eventually managed to get everything in the bag but it was a struggle.
So I slept, fairly well, with my clothing drysack and inflatopillow under my head.  The groundsheet was resting on a layer of sphagnum moss which was an excellent mattress.
I actually first woke at 4am with a bulging bladder and went outside for a slash.  After gifting a tree with nitrogen I then went back for another 4 hrs.
Incidentally those with Ehlers Danlos will know that 4 hrs sleep is essentially 2 lots of 2 hrs at best as you have to wake up to put your shoulder back in it's socket every couple of hours.
But 8 am I woke, as I say, to the sound of rain.  Except it wasn't was it?  It was the midges hitting the tent in their insane bloodlust.  I had to DEET up and net up before I even cracked the door to get the water boiling.  The strainer built in to the saucepan came in usefull to get the midges mainly out of the tea.  I also made one of the Mountain House dehydrated meals- raspberry oatmeal.  Surprisingly yummy.
Packing up took me far longer than it should.  Partly because i hadn't practiced it and also because of the beauty of where I was.  So there I was wasting half the day again.
Anyway I started out on the road again, to get a light shower, but it soon passed and back came the sun.
My pace was pretty good, despite the pack shifting a bit due to changed weight distribution.  However I developed a blister on the ball of my big toe and stopped to treat with Compeed.  I cracked on to an Estate bothy at Corrlarach which was locked but had a hard stand outside I used to boil up lunch, another dehydrated meal this time Sweet and Sour Chicken.  This was surprisingly good.  I know, I also was surprised.
The Cona brook has many, many waterfalls along it.  I urge you to go and see.  be carefull of the enormous Highland cattle though.  the bulls definitely give you evils.

That is typical Cona Glen scenery.  Wild, waterfally and free.  The loneliness...well actually I was not lonely.  and for the first time in a long time the horrible roar of every one elses emotions was not there.
About 8 km in to the walk, on a fairly flat bit of track, my left knee gave way.  I couldn't straighten it, I couldn't bend it.  I used my stick to hop to a boulder and sat for 5 mins rubbing it.  Got up, seemed ok.  Then after 15 yards it went again.
Clearly not good.  I was so far up the glen that the nearest help was over the pass at the end.  But there was no way I was doing that tonight.So I started to look for a campsite.
Of course at this point Cona Glen consists of one giant Sphagnum bog.  everything was sodden.  In the end i found a small hill on top of which red sphagnum was growing.  Red Sphagnum grows on soil not slush, so it was the best I was going to do.  I pitched my tent and then hopped down to the river for water.
The groundsheet kept me dry but you could feel water oozing out when you lay on it.
This time the wind was up enough to keep the midges off so I used my dry ingredients to cook a morrocan soup/stew and a damper with fruit and suet.  I only had chopsticks and a fork to turn it but it was yummy.
I necked some tramadol and helped it along with some whisky.  this soon had me soothed to sleep.

It may be time we talked about this

As you may be aware I have Aspergers, or at least that is my preliminary diagnosis. There is a lot written about Aspergers and I am not about to rehash it here. But there is something that is often overlooked.
This is mostly about adults with Aspergers, particularly those who were not diagnosed as children, a situation that often comes with depression as a comorbidity .
Half of us, this grouping, will struggle with suicidal thoughts.
Nearly a third will attempt suicide.
A third.
That is ten times the rate in Neurotypical adults. To put it in perspective that is the same kill rate as the Black Death.
Why?
You cannot come up with a single answer that fits everyone. But I suspect it is the normal Aspie tension. We cannot tolerate social interaction but we are desperately lonely. It's like being a drug addict allergic to drugs.
I have no answer as to what to do. I have had a week where my PSW and I parted company as we both agreed he could not help me, and my psychiatrist said much the same. I just have to live with it, apparently. It is up to others to adjust to me, apparently.
Yep. That works.

At first I was afraid...

Second day instalment of the hiking  journal...

14/09/2015
Fort William-Cona Glen

I woke up at 4.30 am to the rocking of the train and tried to convince myself to go back to sleep.  I tried a drink of water, a brief read, counting sheep, a stealthy wank (even though Pete had moved out leaving me alone in the cabin the walls are paper thin) but nothing worked.  In the end I gave up and just lay there reading.  This is one of the bad things about depression, it totally messes with sleep at a time when the roborant of morpheus is something you direly need.
Eventually the stealthy noise of people waking started and I took the opportunity to sneak out for a dump before the rush started.  Back to the cabin, a wash in the sink and dressed, then lounged at my ease till breakfast arrived.
This turned up in a cardboard container that looked like two disposable hospital bedpans welded together but contained a passable mini fry up.  The tea arrived in kit form however.  How hard is it to put the teabag in? Eh?
We rolled into Fort William at 9.55 a.m. which was very civilised.  I was a little disoriented as to where the ferry left from to cross the loch, so I ended up missing the 10.20, which I could have got.

 This meant there was a 2 hr delay, so I nipped to Mountain Warehouse for some karabiners and a large dry-sack.  Then to Costa for a coffee and a stealthy charge of the electronics.  Due to Amazon fucking up I had only a kindle copy of the guide and was worried re charge.  I have an emergency recharge block though.


I eventually caught the 12.20.  It was just me and the ferryman, who looked like an 18 year old Tom Hardy.  Crossing Loch Shiel you get  good views of Ben Nevis.  On the other side there s a bus stop and two houses and a small, single track road.  Officially this is an A road.  Not much uses it.  The guide says follow this road until you hit the base of Cona Glen then hang a right.

The road reminds me of the ones in Cornwall in my youth.  Lined with mossy stones.  In fact the edge of the Loch is lined with typical western temperate rain forest, broadleaf trees, moss, ferns.  Anyone visiting Scotland hass to rememberit has an impresiive amount of water falling on it during the year.  Most of the traffic using this road is holiday related, such as cyclists or minibuses loaded up with rucksacks.

Speaking of which it took me a while to adjust my rucksack so that it was even vaguely comfortable.  Too many controls!  In the end I got it to sit up properly and adjust to my weird spine.  The road here was long and the tarmac hard, but the occasional stream crossing the road made up for it.  A few cyclists passed me, some several times.
I got into a rythmn quite well and pounded on, pausing every time i crossed a stream to check where I was.  Eventually I reached the base of Cona Glen, where you get this view over the loch...

 You hang a right up an uninspiring looking rough gravel track.  As you keep going it gets less and less developed and eventually feels rural again.  A cart track really.
Here two things asserted themselves.  One was a HUGE highland bull who stared evilly at me until I was out of sight.  the other was the midges.  They are voracious.  As soon as the breeze drops, or you walk slow enough they attack and they pack a punch.  Head net and DEET.  But DEET just stops them biting ( cannot blame them it tastes foul) they still crawl all over you.  worse still are the Keds.  I did not know what these were at first and so named them Brown Bitey Scuttlebastards. Lipoptena cervi in Latin.  But they have a fascinating life cycle.  They land on you, then shed their wings and scuttle into the nearest hairy bit.  most often the back of the neck.  They are very resistant to swatting, you have to roll them off to break their legs.

Anyway after a lovely stroll up the Glen it started westering and so I looked for a place to camp. In a riparian wood I found this.  I shall let the pictures speak.

Anyway, I can't believe you want to turn the page.

This is the first section of my holiday journal from the recent, slightly abortive, trek.  Whenever I go walking I keep a diary.  Here I am trying to match it up with the pictures.
13/09/15
Ipswich-Fort William

I always find it tricky packing.  I have a tendency to overpack.  I also had very little time without people present.  I cannot concentrate on anything is someone talks to me and that was all MrsInky and Foal wanted to do.  So the planning I needed to put into it was not there.
I used the guidelines in the Cicerone guide to pack equipment.  Tent, sleeping bag, self inflating mat, clothes, waterproofs, gaiters, gloves, bothy shoes, stove, mug, cutlery, multitool, emergency kit, first aid kit, poo trowel, head torch.  All with as many dry sacks as I could find.
Of course I also had to pack food.  I had a mix of dry ingredients, peperami, spices etc.  Also several of the Mountain House dehydrated meals.  The problem is that on this trail you have to carry food because there is not much en route.  4 days at any 1 time.
My rucksack, though large, had to have lots strapped on the outside.  It is very very heavy.  I know this is a mistake but can do nothing at this stage.
I have a small bottle of whiskey along, and this journal and my kindle and origami paper.  Thats my entertainment.
I got a taxi at 13.30 with a rather strange driver.  He was a Kurdish immigrant who used to ive in the mountains.  he was a concert pianist, violinist and violator (or whatever a viola player is called).  Very friendly guy.
I caught the 14.47 down and then round the tube to Euston.  This meant a long wait for the sleeper but I would rather be early than late.  And anyway I can be alone and peaceful there.  Of course Euston had decided to close its internal  eateries so I was sitting outside and frankly the air temperature was not warm.
I am trying to master an origami unicorn but it is very very hard.  I am smoking too much e-cig.  This is mainly stress related.  I am very very very stressed out.
I ate a chilli in Ed's American Diner which was pretty reasonable.
I boarded the sleeper about 19.30, to find my bunkmate, Pete, already in.  I only just got my rucksack in the space, then went down to the cafe.  I had forgotten how small the standard bunks are.
Down at the cafe Pete and his friend Meg were sat down and i joined them as it was the only free seat.  I didnt need more food but had a Bowmore which was rather nice.  We chatted, and then by chance Meg's bunk mate failed to turn up so Pete was moved into her cab, leaving me alone in the space.  While they were arranging this I rang Foal at 9pm to say good luck- she was off on adventure camp the next week, with rucksack etc.
We talked a while in the cafe and I showed them a few origami standards, then I went to bed.
I am very conflicted about MrsInky.  She cried when we said goodbye and said how much she would miss me.  But if that is the case why is she leaving?  At times people drive me insane. Why not just say what you mean?
The motion of the sleeper is not wonderful for my joints, so my sleep is rather disturbed.

I'm a boy, I'm a boy but my Ma won't admit it

Male zebras are relatively rare.

Well the condition seems to affect more women than men.  Certainly the chatrooms and support organisations are pretty much sausage free zones.  You do find some online though.
And that is good because male zebras do get some problems unique to the type.
This post is going to involve a variety of EDS symptoms/things some of which are male specific and others of which are a bit more general.
First I can start with something that seems to be true on informal data gathering and may be one of the few bonus cards you get with this disease.
Male zebras are hung.
They tend to be growers not showers but the elastic nature of the tissue means that we are essentially blessed with an extra, retractable, leg.  No I am not posting pictures.  Look me up on Grindr.
So far so good.
Now you knew there was a downside, yes?
A few weeks ago I developed ...well cracks on my cock.  Specifically on the foreskin. Very painful on peeing and retracting.  And no no pictures of that either.  These cracks would scar, but the scar would make it difficult to retract, and then it would split and...just ouch.
Being a responsible chap I went to my GP.  He has an absolute horror of anything in my pants.  Seriously the guy diagnosed me with sclerosed external haemorrhoids on the basis of my description of what I could feel.  So he said Clap Clinic.  I was going anyway, as responsible adults sshould every so often.  They did various embarrassing tests then got a doc to stare at it for a while.  He said he didn't think it was herpes but gave me a course of acyclovir anyway while the tests went off.
Anyway acyclovir comes and goes, it gets no better.  Tests come back all clear.
So I was chatting to a male zebra online and the subject of sore cocks came up and he said yes, very common, it is due to skin fragility and having a big dick. Steroid cream for the scarring, he said.  So I procured some Canesten HC (which is a weak steroid as well as an antifungal), smeared it on, and within 2 days all was normal in cocksville
Now I am not recommending self diagnosis here but on investigation this is common for male zebras.  But it is word of mouth.  I have done a LOT of pubmed searches around this disease, and have excellent journal access.  Not a...ahem...sausage.
So the reason for sticking this here is to spread the word that male zebras have enormous but fragile cocks.

Now this gentle reader is cigarette paper scarring.  I had 2 small spots on my leg and this scar tissue developed where they were.  This is another well documented zebra skin thing.  Pretty isn't it?  No?

Now you know I went hiking recently?  I looked after my feet, did everything you are meant to do, wore good, well broke in boots, proper socks, everything.

Below is the state of my feet.  I am certainly going to lose 2 toenails and the skin on the rest is looking dodgy.  This goes a little beyond the normal hiking foot damage.

Basically at the moment my skin is falling apart.  Oh what fun

I was hoping for a chance to meet

Much has happened since I last picked up the pace here so I have much to relate.
Firstly my trip hiking Scotland is now definitely on. I leave on the sleeper on Sunday night. I have much packing etc to do but this is good. I am thinking of it as a sort of walkabout.  I haven't done all these elements together before and it is a little daunting.
However I am determined to give it a try even if I drop out after 1 day.
My depression and anxiety have been up and down like a whore's drawers this last week. Some days dreadfully bad. Others just tolerable.  As long as I can keep focused on something I am ok. But that power comes and goes.
I have had days where I could not tolerate people at all. Other days where it was meh. I have made much jam.
Yesterday was good. I managed to book a cbt test on a one day jobby. I had never been on a motorbike before in my life, not even as a pillion pussy. So everything was weird.  For those who haven't the left foot is the gear lever, down for first, up for second, sequential box. The clutch is what would be your left brake on a pushbike. The throttle is the right grip. Front brake is right brake handle. Back brake is right foot.
If that sounds complex it is, especially if you are used to cars. It is closer to how you drive a massey ferguson tractor.
Add to that the fact that you do not really use the throttle to control speed. You slip the clutch all the time. This is disconcerting to say the least.
The back brakes are drum brakes, a part of prehistory for car drivers. The front ones are perforated disc brakes. So all the braking power is up front. Back brake just about stops it rolling.
The front brake snatches like a bastard. It has a hair trigger on it.
The bike I was riding was a cbr 125. Built for dwarves. The gap between the seat and the pedals was so small my knees had to stick out sideways like I was riding it piledriver style. I was in a class with instructors and 3 young people. These younglings had never driven anything else, and had no inherent sense of danger, so they took to it like ducks to expensive duck houses. I was struggling on the off road maneuvers and was kept behind a bit. Part of this, to be honest, was the instructor not recognising that he needed to explain things a little better for someone with no proprioception.
Anyway we went out and did our 2 hrs on the road, with a radio link. When I was leading I was hesitant. This is because I can only do one thing at once.  I can either drive, or listen to instructions. Not both. But I did better than I thought. My low speed maneuvers need work, as does my road placement skills. But it was ok.
When we got back the instructor dealt with the younglings first, telling me to wait behind. My heart was in my boots, but it turned out he was happy enough to give me the cbt but wanted to talk about the direct access because he thought I needed practice. I told him I was going to say the same thing.
So upshot is I have my cbt which let's me ride on l plates on a 125. So now I need a bike that actually fits, and some practice.
So yay.  Left me feeling good, even if Mrs inky was pissed off that foal knew and she didn't.
Oops

The road goes ever, ever on

Much has happened since I last filled in one of these.  And in fact my last post abut chutney should have given a clue about my emotional state. When I am upset I cook.
So I suppose I should fill in a bit more background not just dangle that in front of you.  But since we last spoke I have made not just the runner bean chutney

but also plum jam

greengage and cherry jam

and another chutney that we decided to call roger.  Roger is a red tomato and ginger chutney that is so popular it disappears almost instantly.  I may post the recipe for Roger at some point but as with all Inky cooking its a bit  chuck it in and see.

The holiday with Foal was a massive strain.  I hope she enjoyed it, but it really was tough to get through.  After I came back...well stress stress stress.

A lot of this is caused by my Apsergers tendencies.  I still haven't had a full diagnosis yet but the more I read about it and the more Aspies I talk to, the more it fits. So I am almost certainly on the spectrum somewhere , though it may be PDD NOS.  Which means Murmur was right.  Murmur is a sometime commenter on here who comes from another e-place.  I always think of him as a badger in an old fashioned nurses uniform.  For some reason this upsets him.

Mrsinky and I had argued before I went because I chose the wrong time to have a conversation.  To my Aspie brain it went: this is a conversation we must have, this is the last time we can have it before holidays so we should have it.

The fact it was her first day in a new job, she had toothache and whiplash and a bunch of other stuff going on didn't enter my brain as relevant because that was just emotional stuff. This blog post says quite well how my brain works.  I automatically suppress emotions, and regard any emotional decision as suspect if not de facto wrong.  I respond to people in distress by trying to help them rather than comfort them. See here for why.  This isn't a choice, I genuinely do not know what people want if not help.

It is worse than that of course.  I find expressions of emotions in other people at best troubling.  I literally do not speak that language.  So when  friend tells me that they love me (platonic) I have no idea what to do.  I have the same problem with my parents and siblings.  Their expressions of affection have puzzled and bothered me for a long time.  I have just about worked out what to do when being hugged ( I have a strong dislike of invasions of personal space of any kind, and hate anyone touching me unless we are shagging.  I am hypersensitive to some touches and textures.  Get me to furnish a house and it would be chrome, marble, gloss paint and glass) but find the myriad verbal expressions of emotion...well what are you supposed to say?  How are you supposed to act?  You end up running down a horrible decision tree of responses trying to work out which one will not hurt their feelings or sound weird or whatever.  And that is positive emotion.

Negative emotion is worse.  I had a primary school headmaster whose facial expression, to me, looked like a smile when he was angry.  This led to me being slippered at least once because I misread it.  When someone shouts at me I sit there and take it silently, unless I really need to defend a position.  I respond that way to challenge. I do not enter into competition...in planning meetings or research I give my opinion.  If someone disagrees with it I leave it up to them.  When they find out they are wrong they will be back.  But I won't fight for it.  It is there, take it or leave it.

On the whole I dislike many TV dramas etc. because they insist on focussing on peoples relationships and feelings rather than the plot.  Once you fast forward past these the program becomes quite short.  It is easier if it is well written or funny, so I could watch Buffy in full, as the writing was good.  Except for the bits where she was moping or Angel was brooding, because who cares.  Similarly I think Lois and Clark ruined superman because it became about them having a relationship rather than anything interesting.  But brooding drama...it has to be really really good before I can stand it.

Musicals used to frighten me as a child.  You would have people talking and acting normal then all of a sudden they would start singing and dancing.  It was like they had caught a disease or something.

I could never watch Eastender's or many other soaps.  To me they are all about shouting and anger, and they make me uncomfortable and anxious.  Anger and sadness in others is the worst.  this actually hurts.  It is a mental pain that will not stop until the source of distress is dealt with.  And it is not just one hammer blow it is a constant mounting pain.  The longer I spend with someone showing negative emotion without being able to help them, the more it hurts.  This is why my response to a crying MrsInky is always an offer to help sort out the problem.  What she actually wants tends to be sympathy, but as in the link above I don't know how to do that.  She finds me trying to sort out the problem irritating.  But the thing then is that I have a person in front of me who seems to want to torture me.  They are causing me real distress by radiating negative emotion, and refusing to let me help it stop, which is the only relief from pain I can get.  To my brain telling someone abut a problem without letting them help is cruel.  You are making them miserable as well.

Aspies are known for meltdowns, and yes I show this too.  Negative emotional stimuli like the above are cumulative.  So stress builds.  You can relieve it by doing something, work or a workout or whatever.  But it builds up.  If you then go into an argument or an emotional situation this can overspill.  You meltdown.  This can take many forms.  With me the first thing is a desire to run.  I have to get out of the situation, away from the stimulus.  I go into a room and shut the door away from whoever it is I am talking to,  Of course this sometimes makes them want to follow you to continue the conversation/argument/interaction.  I have been known to end up sitting in a room with my back against the door with other people shouting through it. Sometimes all they are trying to do s see if I am OK but my brain cannot process this and just needs them to stop emoting at me.

Seriously people your emotions are deafening.  Please turn down the volume.

If the stimulus keeps up I will end up self harming in a non premeditated way.  This might be trying to break my hand bones by punching a wall, hitting myself on the head with a rock, trying to stab myself.  Whatever. It is always, always directed inwards at me.  I want the pain, or indeed death to make the emotions stop.

If you know an aspie of course you may want to help them in a meltdown, but seriously what they almost certainly need is an absence of human stimulus.  person dependent, of course.  Ask them.  But I am betting that's what they need.

Now at the moment I have got so much stress on my plate that a meltdown is always about a minute away.  And because I am depressed that takes a different form, like hysterical weeping or suicidal ideation so loud I have to turn  up the ipod to max to drown it out.  The only thing that helps is getting Spock to find something to do.  Do jobs.  Focus focus focus.  Repress.  That is fine until someone asks me how I am, for example.  Or there is a trigger like the final scene in When Harry Met Sally (one of my favourite films.  I think I can never watch it again).  

Anyhoo, am still taking Bupropion.  Annoying Psych doubled the dose because no effect.  I am not sure now what it is doing.  the dose is split morning and evening and frankly I think it is stopping me from sleeping.  I certainly need chemical assistance to do so.  As for effect I am having crisis after crisis.  I am arranging jobs.

On Tuesday I attempt my CBT for motorbike which I am hoping I will pass.  Brrrm.

I am also planning an attempt on the Cape Wrath Trail.  I decided on this pretty recently, and I have therefore imposed on MrsInky by leaving the childcare etc. to her for 3 weeks.  I feel bad about this.

I do not know if I will be able to do it all.  I am in remission at the moment but my joints are susceptible to damage.  And I am wrong in the head.  And that trail is ROUGH.

But it has things I need.  A challenge to make me feel like a man (horse) again.  I have had all the trappings of manhood stripped from me.  It has space and mountains, which I miss very much.  It has a lack of people, which I feel I need right now.  And it has mortification of the flesh, which might sort out my head.  And given the vagaries of my EDS carpe diem, it may be my last shot.

As I say I may drop out early.  I know many people do and there is no shame.  But lets see.