Holiday Ramblings

So, I've been on my holidays all week, which makes for lean pickings here, as I've been too busy enjoying myself to give too much thought to possible postings.  But I can tell you, being on holiday can be even more exhausting than being at work.  On Tuesday, for instance, I met up with The Overnightscape Underground's  Frank Nora and his wife Denice, while they were were passing through London on their way to the continent.  It left me exhausted.  Don't get me wrong - I had a great time wandering around central London with them, visiting a pub along the way, but by the time I got home that evening, I was aching from head to foot.  In part, this was down to having fallen out of the practice of spending the better part of a day walking in exclusively hard surfaces, (I've had similar experiences before, after visiting London and walking everywhere).  When I worked there, about twenty years ago, I got used to it, walking to and from Waterloo, traipsing around the streets every lunchtime and sometimes after work.  But since then, I've fallen out of the habit - believe me, walking miles on country paths, as I did today, is entirely different, and takes less of a toll on the knees and back.  It's the same walking around Crapchester - there's far more variety of surfaces, many quite resilient. 

Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that my physical exhaustion was also down to the knock on effects of my illness last year - I'm still not fully fit.  The length of my recovery time has, and remains, frustrating.  I just don't have the stamina I once had.  It's better than it was when I was ill, but I'm still not right.  I know that this is, in part, down to the effects of some of the medication I take, but it is still frustrating.  Anyway, I was so knackered by the London trip, that I ended up having to spend most of Wednesday recovering, (although, because I'd been spending too much time enjoying myself frivolously, I was running out of food supplies and was therefore forced to go shopping), partly in bed, partly on the sofa.  I felt much better today, spending part of the day wandering around the New Forest, as I am wont to do when off work.  I'll probably stay closer to home tomorrow, I generally do on Fridays in order to avoid the start of the weekend traffic, which will be worse tomorrow as we're going into a bank holiday weekend.  August Bank Holiday, to be precise, most people's last chance of a long weekend before Christmas and, traditionally, the high point of the Summer - it's all downhill from there.