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Thursday 26 November 2015

...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.

Friday 20 November 2015

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.

Thursday 12 November 2015

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.

Wednesday 11 November 2015

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.

Friday 6 November 2015

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.