Thursday 27 January 2011

Wednesday 19 January 2011

2nd day back

So yesterday was my second day back in the office since before Christmas. After beating the flu (still wrestling with a cough, but mostly better) I feel like I've pretty much missed the first part of the year, so it's been nice to be back, but the realisation of how much there is to do is slowly breaking through the flu fog.

It's not a feeling of an overwhelming workload; Steve and Jenn have done a fantastic job of keeping lingo going at a comfortable pace, but the number and scale of projects to handle at once means I'm getting to practice one of my new years resolutions straight away; more planning. It seems that the more you plan, the easier the work becomes. So, as well as working systematically working through a long list of customers to call and to let them know I'm back, I'm spending a lot of time planning to plan. That is, allocating time in my calendar for actually creating thorough plans; detailed road maps for how to get from point a to point b. Invariably, in web design, point a and point b are the same or similar; from no site (or a shoddy one) to a beautiful site, and although there are similarities along the way (cross roads, t junctions etc) no two journeys are identical. For the record, I'm enjoying the planning stage more and more. It still allows for diversions and tangents...but it's nice to have a map.

Other new years resolutions include the big one: going vegetarian. This one is going well, 19 days so far, and only one slip up. I'm finding it fairly easy, but it's early days. I've been avoiding red meat for about a year now, I'm not someone who ever really enjoyed a steak anyway, and I find pork one of the worst foods in the world to digest (without going into too much detail) and while i'll miss white meat, particularly chicken (the one slip up) I'm determined to give vegetarianism my best shot.

Weird that the veggie diet and detox (partly other resolutions, partly just being healthy for the new year) coincided with the blooming flu.



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Tuesday 18 January 2011

Happy New Flu.

I've been quiet. I've been ill.

I wrote this (post below) while ill last week but didn't post it, I'm not sure why, perhaps I was too ill, anyway, I just found it and thought it needs to be posted... I am already writing a more healthy sounding one...!

I am so sick of being ill. I came down with the flu 10 days ago, and I'm still full (this feels a literal description) of the coughs, the aches, the icky feeling and sinus blocked head. The temperature (which peaked at 105) at least has started to return to non sickening heights, and I'm no longer cloaked in sweat, which is nice. The hallucinations were good - once I thought i was a large capsule of drugs, that the walls were curtains, and I'm fairly sure I saw the grim reaper in there too. Yeh, it's been a pretty bad illness.

When people say they've had the flu, chances are they are most likely exaggerating the description of a cold, unless they describe similar symptoms. Generally sparking (so the nurse on the nhs help line told me) people get flu only a few times in their lives. It's pretty debilitating, a strong virus that attacks your system ruthlessly. There's a whole bunch of people saying " you know it's flu when; if there was a £50 note on the floor, on the other side of the room, you wouldn't go and pick it up.' well I have to tell you, you could have put a thousand pounds *just* out of reach and I wouldn't have even blinked. I probably would have thought that I was hallucinating and it belonged to the grim reaper, or that it was about to evaporate anyway. Maybe I would have stared at it a bit, undoubtedly finding it more interesting than the daytime TV which, I had to turn off in the end for fear it was damaging my fragile, flu addled brain even further, preferring instead to sit in silence, than see any more wretched sofa, insurance, blind, or conservatory adverts.

Well I'm sorry this is a very moaning post, not much to it. Just, well...you'd moan too...if you had flu.


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