Tag Archives: salt bath

Wednesday 12th June 2019 – I WENT …

… out for a little walk this afternoon.

Down to town to the Super-U for some salt, seeing as I seem to have run out and forgot to buy some more at the weekend.

What encouraged me in this was that this morning while riding the porcelain horse, I felt an irritation in my knee. So I scratched it – and out of the little hole about which I was talking just recently came something very small, very black and very hard.

Just like a small piece of gravel in fact.

I’m not sure if that was what it was, but it certainly came from the knee. And that’s why I’m taking these salt baths – to draw out whatever might be in there. I remember doing this back in 1972 after my motorcycle accident when I broke both knees.

It soon sorted out the gravel rash and I hope that it will do the same for this.

Despite the early night, I had another night of tossing and turning but, once again, an early start before the final alarm went off.

The nurse came early for the blood test so I didn’t have to wait too long for breakfast. But it gave me an opportunity to do some tidying up.

And we had the same problem as we used to have in that she couldn’t find any veins. I told her that there was no blood left.

This morning I did some more searching on the internet for stuff that I need for my project. I can’t find everything that I want, but I’m sure that I’ve downloaded everything that I can, including a few extremely interesting and unexpected finds.

rendering new house construction rue du port granville manche normandy franceAfter lunch I headed into town. Very slowly and carefully, And for the first time in quite some considerable time, I had the camera out there with me.

There have bee quite a few changes outside since I last went for a good walk around. They are pushing on with the house renovation here in the rue du Port and it won’t be long before they will finish;

They are at the rendering-on-the-lift-shaft stage as well as the chasing-off-the-seagulls stage right now

repairing medieval city walls granville manche normandy franceThey are pushing on with the rebuilding of the city walls too.

They seem to have finished one of the bays and dismantled all of the apparatus that was propping it up. It all seems to be moved round to further down the hill.

But they are going to have to get their skates on. It’s all supposed to be finished by mid-June and that’s only a few days away. It looks as if we’ll be seeing yet another project over-run.

victor hugo police investigating harbour granville manche normandy franceWe had some excitement down at the docks too.

That boat in there by the Victor Hugo seems to be some kind of police launch and there were a couple of guys on a dinghy that seemed to have some kind of connection with the aforementioned. So I was wondering what was going on there.

There were a couple of buoys there in the harbour too, so maybe they had something to do with it all too. I was tempted to go down and enquire but they cleared off pretty qucikly.

roof garden rue du port granville manche normandy franceNow here’s something that I don’t recall ever having noticed before.

Someone in a house down on the rue du Port seems to have a roof garden or terrace up on his roof. That would seem to be an ideal spot to sit and enjoy the summer weather, if ever we are to have any this year, which I doubt very much.

Mind you, I think that the garden pool is rather optimistic. It’s not actually what I would call a swimming pool.

ile de chausey ferry baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceHowever, I was distracted from all of this by a siren going off in the outer port. One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey seems to be setting off on a trip out to the island.

I’d seen it come in to dock a short while ago while I was on my way into town, but I couldn’t take a good photo of it. So I was quite pleased to catch it on its way out into the baie de Mont St Michel.

But the weather is looking quite ominous out there at the head of the bay. I’m glad that I’m not walking around down there in all of that.

A slow crawl back up the hill and then back here, and I ached rather more than somewhat. It’s a good job that I didn’t go too far, but I have quite a journey to make on Monday so I need to try things out.

And I unfortunately crashed out for about 15 minutes. Can’t be helped, I suppose. Not these days anyway;

Later on before tea, I had my hour in the bath with a pile of salt. And I don’t seem to be too affected by the walk today. And so I might even go for a little walk tomorrow – not as far as today though. I don’t want to push the boat out too far.

Tea was past and veg in tomato sauce with the last of those seitan burgers that I bought from NOZ a while back.

And now another early night. Having had a good walk, I hope that I can make the most of it.

rendering new house construction rue du port granville manche normandy france
rendering new house construction rue du port granville manche normandy france

repairing medieval city walls granville manche normandy france
repairing medieval city walls granville manche normandy france

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Tuesday 11th June 2019 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Last night I didn’t go to bed early at all. In fact it was long after midnight before I hit the hay.

And despite a disturbed night (yet again) I was up and about before the third alarm went off.

There was a little wobble round about 14:30 where I drifted off for 10 minutes but apart from that I’ve kept going for all of the day.

As a result I’m not convinced that it’s a lack of sleep that’s causing this fatigue from which I’m suffering, but something else completely – not that this would surprise me in any way.

With an early start I had an opportunity to crack on with a pile of stuff and I’ve managed to track down a pile of useful stuff for a little project that I have in mind.

That prompted me to do a major back-up of files on the computer. They’ve all been backed up onto the external hard drive and by the time that you read this, today’s work will be backed up on a new memory stick that I bought a while ago.

As well as that I’ve tidied up a little here and there, done some more packing, charged up a few batteries and then attacked the photos for April 2018.

And by the time that I went off for my salt bath I’d finished that too, and I’m well-impressed.

But there are still issues with my leg. the movement seems to be more restricted than it was, and the leg feels as if it weighs a tonne. So I don’t know what’s going on here

Tea was taco rolls with spicy rice followed by pears and coconut soya cream. And now I’m ready for bed, early though it might be. I’m having a blood test tomorrow early and I can’t have breakfast until it’s done.

And here’s another thing.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony of Brexit supported by the President of a country that went to war and ruthlessly suppressed a group of states that wanted to secede from the Union?

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Monday 10th June 2019 – I SHOULDN’T HAVE …

… gone for that drive this afternoon.

Admittedly I only went 500 metres around the block but I ended up in agony. and so I can rule out driving (a manual car, at least) for the next while.

Despite the absence of an alarm this morning I had another miserable sleep. I didn’t get much of that and what I did was interrupted by a lot of tossing and turning.

Shame as it is to say it, I was up and out of bed by 07:30. Pretty pointless in remaining there not being able to sleep and having a thirst that I could photograph.

After the usual morning performance I ended up doing a pile of tidying up – in the bedroom, in the kitchen (I took out a pile of plastic, glass and carton waste) and on the computer where I eliminated a pile of duplicate files.

After lunch I went for my little drive, which I bitterly regretted, and then came back to press on with the photos for April 2018, of which there are hundreds.

However, I couldn’t keep it up. By about 16:30 I ended up back in bed where I stayed for a couple of hours. Following which I leapt into a salt bath for an hour. not as salty as I was hoping because I’m running low on salt, having forgotten to buy any at the weekend.

as a result a rather late tea, of pasta and mixed veg tossed in olive oil, black pepper and garlic salt.

But now my leg is weeping again. It had stopped for about 36 hours but the driving seems to have started it off again. That’s very disappointing.

It’s enough to make me go early to bed and I need to too, because I have plenty to do tomorrow. I have to push on.

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Sunday 9th June 2019 – IT’S SUNDAY …

… and Sunday is a day of rest.

So no-one was more disappointed than me to be awake at 04:30.

In fact that wasn’t the first time that I was awake either. I must have been awake three or four times before then – and two or three times after then too. What finally put the hat on it was that the wooden box that I use to prop up my leg in bed fell out of bed, and almost took me with it

07:45 was still far too early to be out of bed but there wasn’t much point in staying there any longer.

After a comparatively early start to the day I attacked the photos for April 2018 but my heart wasn’t in it and I ended up back in bed by 11:00. There I stayed until 12:40, having had a good doze here and there.

Rosemary rang me this afternoon and we had a lengthy chat, following which I took the waters – to wit one saline bath. and it seems to have eased the knee a little more.

And much to my surprise, the leg doesn’t seem to be weeping as much as it did before. And I’m not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign.

Tea was a pizza and now I’m going to have an early night. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow so I’m not going to set an alarm. I’m going to have a nice quiet lie-in instead to make up for today.

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Friday 7th June 2019 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… is that my knee doesn’t seem to be septic or infected. Whatever is weeping out of it doesn’t correspond with anything that one would expect to see under those conditions.

It seems to be what you might expect to see in the case of an inflammation. And the bad news is that there’s nothing that I can take that it anti-inflammatory that would not react with the other products that I take.

Consequently I need to go off to somewhere around here for an ecograph and then on 17th June to see a specialist in Coutances.

And isn’t that cutting it rather too fine?

But for now, the salt baths do seem to be working. I was in the bath for an hour this afternoon and it eased the leg off considerably. In fact I was walking around a darn sight better than I have done for the last 10 days or so.

What I shall have to do is to keep on with that every day or so and take whatever relief it might give me.

But the one thing about going to Coutances is that I’ll finally get to have a ride on the new railway. There are good connections to and from Granville for my appointment, and it’ll give me a chance to try out the leg prior to my trip to Leuven the following weekend.

Last night was another decent night for sleeping and I was even out of bed, up and about before the final alarm went off.

And having had breakfast I made a start on the searchable text database for the photos for April 2018. And this is going to take a while because there are plenty of them. I had a good weekend in Germany, a few days in Oostende and a week in Tunisia.

After a little tidying-up and lunch I had my salt bath and a good clean-up and tidy-up, and then Brigitte came to take me to the doctor’s.

Back here, I invited her in for a coffee and a chat and then made my tea. a curry made out of leftovers, and I found that I had forgotten to add the leftover peppers. Nevertheless it was delicious.

Tomorrow I’m shopping so I’m going to have another early night. I hope that it’s as good as last night, because it occurs to me that I haven’t crashed out yet.

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Thursday 6th June 2019 – HAVING DONE SOMETHING …

… yesterday that I haven’t done in more than 25 years, I went out this afternoon and did it again.

Having managed almost a completely normal day yesterday apart from an hour or so in the late afternoon, I was asleep at a reasonable time. And Although there was a lengthy period round about 01:35 when I was wide awake, I slept right through to the alarm – and then some too.

Considering my lack of mobility, I’ve had a rather busy day. All of the photos going back to when I broke my hand are now edited, cropped, enhanced and saved, and entered in the database.

And there were more of them than I was expecting too.

When I can sit comfortably, whenever that might be, I’ll bring up-to-date the blog entries. But at the moment, sitting with one leg up in the air is not the easiest way to deal with things like a large batch of typing.

Having had lunch I then went back into the bath for another hour or so. and while it didn’t have the same dramatic effect as yesterday (and most of that wore off as the evening drew on) it still made things much easier for moving about.

The bedroom has been tidied up somewhat too, with some of the stuff that was lying around now arranged on shelves. But it’s only scratching the surface and I need to push on when I can.

Round about 17:30 I had a crash-out on the bed for about 45 minutes, and I’ve also done another month’s indexing of photos (1805) and I’ve made a start on 1804 – that is to say April 2018.

Tea was a small stuffed pepper with spicy rice and I’m glad that I am back to eating a little. I seem to have lost 5kgs and that’s good news.

Tomorrow, more of the same including the bath, because Brigitte is taking me to the doctor’s, which is very nice of her.

I don’t have many friends, as everyone knows, but those I have are the best in the world and quantity is never a substitute for quality.

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Wednesday 5th June 2019 – IT’S BEEN PROBABLY 25 YEARS …

… or maybe even more since I last had a bath.

But this afternoon I took the plunge, as it were, and it was delicious.

Yet another difficult night and I was awake by 01:35. At 04:30 I was up and about and having my medication and by the time that the alarms went off I was ready for breakfast.

This morning, trying my best to find some concentration, I finished off transcribing the notes for Canada 2017 at long last, followed by making the photo templates for the rest of the summer.

That took me until lunchtime.

After lunch, I ran a deep hot bath, lowered myself in and then slowly added a half-cup of salt. And then I lay in it for well over an hour.

All of my wounds have cleared up, the swelling has subsided and the bright red colour has now changed to a more medium red. and for an hour or two I could move around quite happily.

Even now, it’s much freer than it was before.

But I can see a deep hole in the knee where it is weeping. It looks as if a large piece of gravel was embedded in it, and that is what has caused all of the problems.

I’ve no idea if it’s still there, but I’ll go for another hour or so in a slat-water bath tomorrow and see if that helps.

For Friday I’ve arranged an appointment with the doctor, and as Liz can’t take me, I’ve asked Brigitte if she would.

For a change I’ve done a little tidying up today, and I’ve also made some tea for the first time for a while. A baked potato and beans, so nothing exciting. But it’s a start.

and I managed to keep out of bed until about 17:30 before succumbing to sleep.

So I’m ready for a good night’s sleep. I’m intrigued now to see how I’ll be feeling in the morning.

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