I have a social life

Paris, April 2016

The trouble with socialising is that it makes me tired. That's pretty much the only disadvantage, so I'm trying to do it a bit more. Matters beyond my control meant that last week I had three evening events on three consecutive days, which was more than I would have liked, but I have survived.

First there was a delayed birthday party for two of us at work, held at the house of the other birthday girl which contains a fully equipped games room with pinball, pool, space invaders, a boxing machine and goodness knows what else. It isn't actually her house; it belongs to her daughter and son-in-law and their three children, but she and her husband live in the annexe. The rest of the family was away on holiday, so we used the games room, ate takeaway curry, and I even had a tour of the house. I can't begin to describe the contents - bling, glamour, expense, and Things Everywhere You Look. Artifacts. Pictures. Murals. It was enormous, extravagant, over-the-top. I can barely manage to maintain Lola Towers; thinking of all the work that would have to go into keeping this mansion in good condition made me slightly faint. It was extraordinary.

The second event was the badminton club BBQ which had been planned for about six months, but on the scheduled day everyone was on holiday or busy and only four players plus one partner were available. So we ditched the BBQ idea and the five of us played pool instead, which was actually great fun. I haven't played pool for many years, but I wasn't too bad at it. All but one of the games I played ended with a foul shot, so I wouldn't say any of us was particularly skillful.

Last was a birthday party held by old friends whom I hadn't seen for some time, with a pirate theme. For a change I put in a bit of effort to create a pirate costume. It was a good do, although I think they suffered from everyone being on holiday in the same way as we did for the BBQ. The live band was tremendous - as the third evening out in a row I would have left well before the end if it hadn't been for the music.

The LTRP has paused briefly, although I'm still trying to make the garden look a bit better. I ordered some perennials (6 random plants of 4 different types for £5) which turned out to be foxglove, lavender, aquilegia and echinacea. They came as tiny plugs and before they all died I've managed to pot them up, They're on the windowsill to see which survive, then they're going into the garden and if they die, they die. It's survival of the fittest out there. [Subsequent note - all the lavender plants seem to have died already.]

The other project I've embarked on is to try and manage the amount of food I'm eating, which has drifted into 'out of control' territory. I spend all day helping other people to manage their intake, coming up with all sorts of plans and ideas, but I can't seem to implement anything sensible for myself. I may or may not write more about this, but it will depend on how successful I am.

That reminds me - I've been working on a website to support people who want to cut their carbohydrate intake to almost nothing (less than 40g carb a day), and it's going really well so far. I've been lucky to have had a bit of time recently to spend on it (because everyone is away on holiday) but I've still got a few more ideas. A few people at work have seen it and they haven't ordered me to take it down, so that's good. There was talk of incorporating it into the main hospital website, but when I initially asked the IT department if they would help they said 'no' so I'm reluctant to relinquish control now that I've done all the work.

Brief car update - since the main dealer pronounced the air conditioning unit to be a terminal case due to stone chip damage, it has been working perfectly. I took it to my usual garage anyway as arranged, and they agreed with me. We concluded that the affair made no sense, commented in a British fashion on the relative uselessness of air conditioning with only one or two warm days a year (although that day happened to be one of them) and I took myself and the car off home.

Moûtiers town square, April 2016