So you might have noticed that things look a little different now. This is my very first WordPress theme and I’m rather pleased with how it turned out. I’ve also updated the Who’s Who page [again] because I decided I didn’t like just an initial to name someone – so I’ve made up some names. People who already had fake names have remained the same, but instead of ‘Oldest’ my sister is now ‘Blanketgirl’ to match her website. I’m hoping it’ll make it easier for people to keep track. I’ve also given my colleagues at work new fake names, should be fun. I know there are spacing issues in Internet Explorer – but I don’t care because I hate IE. If you find something that looks odd or doesn’t work please let me know – ezekiel [at] periwinkleblue.co.uk

The steroid I’m on has a reputation for making people a little… confused. I’m not used to being confused. I’m always planning and thinking things through. Yesterday I decided for my walk that I’d head towards a nearby estate [beautiful old manor house with gorgeous grounds and a pond] – I didn’t think I’d make it all the way there but I thought it would be fun to try. Additionally, it meant that I could stop a Budgens on the way home and pick up a few things I needed to make my own taco seasoning and Ranch dressing [I only recently thought of making it from scratch].

I planned ahead a little bit, I had the cloth shopping bag and my wallet. I made it most of the way to the estate – within site, but I turned around just before because I was running out of time. So as I approached the shop I thought the process through and realised I should have either a) brought my listening device in case the salesperson said something of note or b) worn my ‘hard of hearing’ badge so they’d know I wasn’t just ignoring them. I lucked out in any event, salesperson didn’t have anything to say and I didn’t have to hear.

It’s just not like me to not think of things like that.

I’ve filled in about half of my incapacity benefit claim form. I just answered the easy yes/no questions and left any I had questions on or couldn’t answer off the top of my head. It turns out I didn’t have to fill in the whole of section two, so the form isn’t half as scary as I initially thought.

I finally inflated my exercise ball and I’m sitting on it now. I’m right, it is going to help strengthen my core muscles and help with my balance. I can feel it already. I think it’ll also help my legs because I like to rock.

For my walk this morning I went with Kara to another shop and it took about an hour. I’m pleased with the progress I’m making on my walks and I’m excited to be outside longer amongst the people. I doubt I’ll make it into the city centre this month, but it is amazing to be outside.

I have found that I can greatly reduce the liquid morphine – I’m just not feeling the pain. Yesterday I didn’t take it for nine hours. I’ve also moved to 5ml instead of 10ml when I do take it. This morning I took it at 5:40 then I didn’t again until noon. I just took another 5ml at 6pm, but I do have some pain in my teeth – I suspect brought on by the small coughing fit I had 30 minutes before. I’m still on 60mg a day of the slow-release tablets though so I’m not completely without.

I finally managed to catch-up with some of my belated correspondance last night. I wrote 2.5 e-mails and two MySpace messages. I owe 1.5 e-mails now and the 0.5 one should be fairly quick. I’m pleased because this has been stalking me for a month.

I have also discovered the awesome power of Google Reader – I’ve put loads of feeds in today and I think it’ll make my life so much easier. For example, I love love love reading Kevin Smith’s website, but he hasn’t updated since January 10th [he has a good reason though - he's filming a film]. So rather than check every day [or weekly] I can just pop into Google reader and let it tell me when he’s updated. Brilliant.

Weasel and I have just finalised our V-Day plans. We’re going to turn off the computers and the phone and unplug. We’re going to have special Wraps by Weasel [tortilla shells filled with yummy veggies and cheese and crispied in the oven - yum!]. We’re then going to sit down and watch a film [we have Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Better than Chocolate from LoveFilm at the moment]. Finally, we’re going to write letters to each other. We’ve done the letter thing before and it is always amazing. I’m rather excited about the whole thing now.

Alas this has become longer than I intended and I still haven’t purged my thoughts on Horatio’s visit last weekend. Perhaps tomorrow, I’m sure one more day of turning it all over in my mind will be useful. This sounds sort of ominous – we’re fine we had a good time, but I have some thoughts I want to work through. It’s all good.