Mark Dalton

So i’m not quite sure how but I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back last weekend. Now I hurt my back years ago, but its never really done much more than ache, and then only when I had over done it. This time however I have been in total agony, and laid up most of the week. Coughing or sneezing brought tears to my eyes, and going up and down the stairs was a major excursion.

Thankfully by Thursday it was starting to ease up and by Friday morning it was back to just aching. So today I arranged to meet Katrina and take William and Eleanor to the park to feed the ducks. It was a beautiful day and the walk around the ponds really loosened up my back, and allowed me to get some fresh air for the first time in a week.

Near the end of our walk I remembered that I hadn’t tried recording any video on the iPhone 4, so I grabbed a few seconds of Eleanor singing a unique version of “Old MacDonald had a farm”. Far too cute not to post!

Christmas was a quiet affair this year with just Mum, Dad, and I sitting down for Christmas dinner. Boxing day however was anything but as Katrina, Rob, Rob”s Mum, William, and Eleanor came to visit and proved that Christmas is all about the children.

Even though I had a chest infection (read Man Flu) I still had to take my turn having invisible cups of tea and falling down when shot with either a machine gun or a ray gun. All in all it was great fun and watching the kids open there presents was priceless. They really didn”t know what to play with first. Mum and Dad, as always, were excellent hosts and ensured we all had everything we could possibly want.

All the photo”s I took are now available in the Photo Gallery and on Flickr.

So this weekend I have been the Duty Manager and therefore tied to the house, however looking on the positive side, I have a filthy cold so it probably hasn’t done any harm staying in the warm. Work has been pretty manic over the last couple of weeks and there were a few more changes going in this weekend than in previous weeks, but thankfully the weekend has gone smoothly and without any major hitches.

Other than this I have pretty much just lay on the sofa and watch TV and I must say I feel better for it. This afternoon I am going to tidy up the house and then catch up on some paper work. Exciting!

One thing I have managed to sort out is a problem I was having using my HP 7210 All-In-One unit that stopped scanning after I upgraded to Snow Leopard. A major pain in the backside as I use this for scanning in all by bills and documents.

It would appear that the functionality is now built directly into Snow Leopard, and the previous HP drivers and tools are now redundant, full details can be found on the HP Website here.

This has meant that I have had to change my work flow slightly, but I do like the fact that I can use tools that are built into the Operating System and don’t have to keep track of driver versions.

So it’s been a long time since I last posted anything so I thought I better explain myself. It started off with a few nice weekends and the desire to be out and about rather than stuck in front of the computer, then I went down with the flu and was off work for three weeks. Since then I haven’t felt 100% and have been unable to shake it off. I have been backwards and forwards between the doctors and the hospital and have had more blood tests and x-rays than hot dinners but am still none the wiser as to what the underlying problem is other than some kind of infection.

Well this last week I have started to feel a little like my normal self and have started to catch up on many of the things that I have neglected. This weekend I am Duty Manager so am tied to the house for the most part. Luckily so far it has been quite and today I have managed to catch up with the growing mound of paperwork, and upgrade my Mac’s to the latest version of Mac OS X (Snow Leopard). Tomorrow I plan to sort the house out a little, especially the growing pile of e-Bay items, and may even tackle the weeds that seem to be taking over my drive way if the rain holds off.

This week started out with a limp after the “Chain Saw” incident at the weekend. The worst part was the commute as people inevitably kept knocking my leg with their bag or case. It wasn’t to bad however as I had it well covered and padded.

My colleagues were very supportive, even going as far as documenting the incident for me (See the post it note to the left). Tuesday morning I had an appointment with the practice nurse at my local doctors surgery. The nurse was very nice, and after telling me that you need to be careful with chain saw’s, looked at the wound. She was concerned that it was still rather macerated and she advised that she didn’t think the stitches would be ready to come out on Friday but wanted to see me and check the wound and at least change the dressing.

Tuesday evening the wonderful “Tube Drivers” decided they were going on strike. Now as I understand it only 1/3 of the union members actually voted for the strike action, but it went ahead anyway as the Union Leaders insisted at the last minute on the reinstatement of two drivers. One of these drivers was / is due to appear in court on charges of theft, and the other is facing disciplinary procedures because he opened the doors on the wrong side of the train endangering the lives of all the passengers on the train (MUPPETS). The action was due to start at 18:59 so as you can imagine it was really busy from about 16:30, and yes every bag and brief case managed to hit me exactly where the chain saw wound was.

Wednesday morning the train from Basingstoke was quiet as expected, but once I hit Waterloo it was anarchy. I hadn’t really thought about it and intended to get the boat from the London Eye down to Tower Hill. However I hadn’t checked the route and spent about 15 minutes trying to fight my way through the mass of people, but eventually gave up and opted for the Taxi share. Well, that was a mistake! The roads were completely blocked and it took an hour and 15 minutes to get to Bank, then I had to walk to Aldgate. That evening Sarah, our wonderful Project Administrator, walked with me to Tower Hill Pier and we caught the boat back to Waterloo via Westminster. The journey door to door took 1 hour and 15 minutes but was far more pleasant, and indeed insightful as the crew provided a guided tour as we moved down the river. It’s amazing I have worked in London for over 9 years and hadn’t seen a lot of these landmarks.

Thursday morning I headed straight for the pier and the boat. I had learned my lesson and what a pleasure it was too. We left Waterloo and were at Tower Hill Pier 15 minutes later. I may have to look into doing this during the summer months instead of the tube! Thursday night I headed straight for the Pier not even thinking about other ways of getting home.

Friday morning I was back to see the practice nurse. See checked the wound and didn’t like what she saw. It was still very macerated and she questioned if the stitches were doing anything. She asked me what I did for a living and asked if it was possible to rest up for a couple of days with no dressing on the wound as it needed to dry out. Commuting isn’t really conducive with an open wound so I said I could work from home and that’s what I did.

Today, after I had showered, I cleaned the wound up and slipped on a pair of shorts and it seems to be doing the trick. It’s still quite sore but they are going to take the stitches out Monday regardless. Apparently by that time there is a risk of them growing into the skin, lovely! So today I am stuck in the house and it’s nice outside, but I have next week off and would rather suffer now and enjoy next week.

[14/06/2009] I have uploaded all the photo’s taken so far to my Flickr account here, or of course you can few them by clicking the Photo Gallery link at the top of the page too.