November 2005 Archives

In times past, one of the industries on the Rock was lead mining. Today the mines are silent and exhausted; only their ruins stand as testament to the livelihoods eked out in these hills. One of these mines is not far from where I live and is a favourite place for walking and taking photos.

The remains of the site office. The sign says "NO TIPPING".
No Tipping

I love this chimney. It looks about ready to fall over, but it's been like this for years. You might say it's the Rock's very own Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The Leaning Chimney of Mann

This chimney is kinda cool too. The Victorians really knew how to build things and even their industrial architecture was made to be pleasing to the eye. Notice how the corner stones contrast with the ones in the middle.
Square Chimney

The mines are located high up in the hills and the men who worked there had commanding views of the countryside. Here you can see the Irish Sea down through the Glen Maye Valley.
Miner's View

In late August while on a visit to the mainland, I got an early birthday present - a Kodak digital camera. I've always enjoyed photography and I like to think that it is in my blood to an extent as my father was a keen amature photographer. Since I've been living on the Rock it was too expensive a hobby and aside from some photos taken back when I was at the fishing, I never really bothered. The shutterbug itch never really left me though and I've been absolutely delighted with my new camera.

Here's some photos I've taken recently. Now that I've figured out how to post photos here, I'm hoping to do a bit of photoblogging - that is take a few subjects and keep you updated on them through the magic of Kodak.

This photo was taken from Peel Hill, looking across the harbour towards the bottom end of town. You can see my flat; it is the cream building with green-framed windows. That big arched window is in my bedroom.
Peel

This is Phylis Phlea, the matriarch of the furry side of my family. She's about ten years old now and a mother to many kittens. One of her sons still lives with us; his name is Vester - that's short for Sylvester, or Silly Vester as he is often called. I'll get a photo up of him sometime too, when he finally consents to having a good one taken.
Phylis Phlea

This is Tansy the Wonder Dog; aka Tansy Pansy Puddin' Pie, or Puddin' for short. She wears a collar with a red bandana attached that we bought for her on a market stall in Amsterdam about two years ago. She loves her collar and gets really upset when I take it off to wash the pair of them. She also has a thing for coats. If it's raining out and I put her coat on her, I have a hard job catching her to take it back off when we get home. I never met a dog who liked getting dressed up before.
Tansy

My partner and I went to Bedford, England in late August this year and we stayed at a place called Priory Lake. There are many nature trails in this area and there are special fishing platforms almost the whole way around the lake. This photo was taken from one of the platforms in the late afternoon sunshine.
Priory Lake

There are also trails along an old disused railway line at Priory Lake. I went for a walk along it and was very surprised to come across this pyramid in the woods.
Pyramid in the Woods

This photo was taken in York, England. These are the medieval ruins of St. Mary's Abbey which was once the most important Benedictine monastery in the north of England. The abbey was closed in 1539 so Henry VIII could rob the place without tripping over pesky monks.
St. Mary's Abbey

This is an old cemetary that lies hidden behind the walls of St. Mary's Abbey. The cemetary doesn't belong to the abbey, but to a little church that I didn't catch the name of. It was a very peaceful spot.
Cemetary

You can see the back of the wall that appears in the St. Mary's photo on this photo of the little cemetary. This is my favourite of the two cemetary photos; I just love the the way the lighting sets the mood.
Back-lit Cemetary

I hope you enjoyed the photos, because there's plenty more where they came from and plenty more yet to be taken. Watch this space...

I haven’t been writing much. I was going to say ‘recently’, but when you look at my blogging history, I haven’t exactly been prolific since Peter Staley first invited me to blog just over a year ago. Just what I plan on doing about that, well, you’ll have to keep checking back here to find out.

This past year has brought a lot of changes in my life. I went from working a mere five hours a week to working full time in January. The early weeks were more challenging than I bargained for and although I intended to chronicle the transition here in my blog, I found myself too tired. As the weeks went by, I grew less tired and became stronger. I embarked on a counselling course at the local nursing college. I started being able to do things around the house after work and went for weekend countryside walks. Just as life was beginning to feel like life again… I got a hep B jab.

That jab in late May changed everything. I suddenly – and I mean suddenly - felt like I had hep C again. Fatigue, brainfog, the joint pain, they all came back. I continued working, falling asleep on the couch at 6:30 thinking, “If I sleep through the weekend I’ll be alright”. Three weeks and a lot of sleep later, I was signed off work at my quarterly blood draw and haven’t worked since. After the Wiz told me off for not saying something sooner, he ran all sorts of tests but my hep C was still undetectable, my viral load low and my CD4s were high. Everything was as it should be. Six weeks later, we looked at autoimmune issues but drew inconclusive results. The verdict – a possible autoimmune type response to the hep B jab. The sentence – keep an eye on it.

It is now twenty three weeks since I had the jab and I’m still not back to where I was before, but mainly where the brainfog is concerned. My joints are still sore some days but overall they’re feeling better. Although my stamina needs work, my fatigue is dissipating and that’s all good. But the brainfog? It has been persistent and shows little sign of clearing up.

What makes it so upsetting is I thought I’d beaten the brainfog. The worst of it was during the treatment. Swimming through treatment smog made me realise what I had previously thought of as fog was merely mist on a summer morn. It took a long time for the effects of interferon to wear off and I worked damn hard to rid myself of the lingering fog. I read, I wrote, I kept my mind active. It took six long months for the smog to lift before I could go to work part-time, still achy and foggy but improving all the time. Over the course of the next year, I got stronger and clearer bit by bit until I was offered a full time position. I gave it a trial for a few weeks in December and you know the rest – the bit leading up to the hep B jab.

After two years climbing out of the treatment smog, it suddenly seems as though the improvements had never happened and quite frankly my dear, it’s pissing me off! It’s something that I am finding it increasingly difficult to cope with. Sore hips I can handle but give me my mind back! Earlier this week I had a long talk about me and my fog with Dr. Mas, my doc’s right hand man. Our discussion gave me a lot of food for thought and I’m determined to get to the bottom of this. Want to know how? Stay tuned....