Leica’s Infrequent Pensées

I spent a fair bit of last week recuperating from the Shortest Night 2009 all-night shoot. I messed up my sleep pattern and seem to be stuck in an up-late, sleep-late pattern. So I started exercising late as well - 20-30 minutes on the Duppas fitness trail followed by a long wander around the park with Riz and finishing up with a of quiet contemplation in front a warm summer sunset.

Doing the fitness trail feels a bit like exercise without ever maxing my heart rate but also without the pain of pounding the pavement jogging gives me, so I’ve started to like it now. Going in the evening rather than the morning shocked me a bit. In the mornings a few housewives make the rounds of the simple equipment.

In the evening spillover from the busy adjacent playground takes over. Small children attempt exercising properly until boredom inspires them to climb up and all over the equipment while their parents smile and wave. It suggests we cease to become a wrapped-in-cotton-wool nanny state. I wait patiently for chipped teeth and free access while goofing with Riz.

Actually no one has gotten hurt and the wait is rarely very long.

After a workout and brisk wander with multiple games of fetch or football, Riz and stop for a bit on the top of the hill and take in the sunset and (hopefully) cool breeze, while I contemplate my navel.

Last week I moped around a bit but the exercise and summer breeze blow out the cobwebs. Lately I started thinking, with some sadness, about “the butterfly effect” and resenting how I ended up unemployed during the depths of a recession. But, looking over at Riz, I started to look at it another way.

I know Riz is still ill. I worry the latest course of meds are failing, given his incontinence and decreased appetite. And even if beats the e-coli infection he’s old. He’s (circa) 13 years old, give or take a year (Battersea Dogs’ Home could only guess at his age when I adopted him) — I have to start to accept the inevitable.

If it weren’t for my getting ill and losing my job I wouldn’t have this time to spend with him. And I’m very grateful for it.

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In the past when my then husband and I went to tapings of Radio 4 programs he would ring up the ticket unit and see what was available.

A while back I noticed on of my far-too-many RSS feeds told me tickets for The Now Show were available. I signed up for the first and last show of the series, received an email telling me my request had been received then pretty much forgot about it.

Yesterday I noticed a text on my phone from “message” with no other info, telling me I had tickets for the taping. No information as to where it was, though I suspect it was at Broadcasting House. They sent no other info at all, no email.

I thought of calling the Beeb to see if this was standard operating procedure, but in the end I just gave up.

Yesterday was a weird day. Too much negativity and death. I made jokes. I deal with things by making jokes.

Things are a bit weird right now. I’m trying very hard to finally get some closure regarding last year but that’s backfiring quite spectacularly. But I’ve handled it with a lot of aplomb and maturity and am pretty proud of myself. It really is all about self confidence, the real freedom is being comfortable doing what you feel right.

Still, I think I’d prefer closure right now, I don’t really care so much about being right.

In the end I decided not to go to the taping, as much as I love The Now Show. I just didn’t feel like it. I worry about Riz, my ears are due a syringing and in the meantime I’ve got a head full of gloppy olive oil and can’t hear properly and I feel anxious. Once I get an idea in my head of what will fix something, it’s hard to shift it. And once I get stuck on an idea I feel tremendous anxiety until I act on it.

A on-again-off-again friend organised a leaving do for tonight, and lots of people I know will be there. Still feeling a bit yesterday, a bit last year. I might just opt for a quiet night in with Riz instead.

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Riz seems a bit poorly. He refuses his food until he’s very hungry - sometimes waiting as much as 10 hours to finish (or even start) eating.

He eats snacks still, so I’m hoping it’s just the taste of the antibiotics mixed in his food. The only way I can get him to take the meds is to try to hide the taste, but that takes very stinky food (dogs’ appetites are stimulated by smell).

He needs to go outside very often now and if he’s been running around he feels the need to go every few minutes. On the plus side giving him lots and lots of fresh water and letting him outside frequently seems to be helping - the last few days he’s woken me up at dawn needing to go outside, but today he waited until I woke, which was circa 7 am.

I’ll ring the vet today and see what she says, though I’m a bit afraid to ring in case it’s bad news.

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I realised I’ve been doing most of my blogging via Twitter now. I will make amends.

I spent last night on an all-night photo walk. It mostly involved circling from The South Bank up Tower Bridge and back a couple of times, with a detour through China Town for some Chinese food at an open-all-night Chinese Restaurant.

I’ll try to edit an upload later today.

<shameless self promotion> In the meantime feel free to have a look at what’s currently in my Flickr stream. </shameless self promotion>

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Life got a bit interesting.

Long story short, my GP signed me off ill for a couple of weeks and when I returned my services were no longer required at RIM.

Few people hiring, many people applying.

So…challenges lay ahead!

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