Steroids are good!!

"I don't care how well you're feeling and how well your leg is healing- I'm not getting in that thing again!!" ( Dillan the spaniel)

I think I'm maybe looking at the world the wrong way. I'm now back on the steroids and they are certainly buzzing me up and interfering with sleep etc. However, the four days I was off the steroids ( its a four day on - four day off regime) I had really forgotten how you can crash after the boost of the steroids. I'd felt pretty low and tired and really couldn't get going at all. I could see my wife had simply assumed I had resumed membership of the grumpy old men brigade. Looking ahead to how long I'd be on the steroids in the study didn't much appeal given the way I was feeling. Back on the steroids I feel much better, more sociable, able to do things and though having trouble sleeping, managing to plan my nights to be sure I have plenty distractions (like writing blogs at 3.30 am!). So I think rather than view the steroids as a problem and look forward to being off them, I'm now viewing the days on steroids as my good days and will adjust what I do and can do when I'm off them on what I might need to rethink as my less good days. So steroids are good! Maybe the Scotland France rugby result hasn't helped!

My wife and children have given me a great early birthday present- an Ipod Nano- surely a classic mix of design and function. I've built up a library of some of my favourite music and have also now entered the world of podcasts. During the day I locate radio podcasts to listen to during the night and have even managed to set up a subscription to certain podcasts which automatically up date when I attach the Ipod to the computer. Clever stuff. One of the first podcasts was an interview with Lynn Truss ( author of Eats Bamboo Shoots and Leaves). All about the funnies in the English language- especially where the role of the apostrophe is involved in statements as in the sign which read "Residents refuse to be put in bins" which reads very differently from the one with the apostrophe- " Resident's refuse to be put in bins". What the programme set my wife and I off on was a family nostalgia trip about gently humourous signs we'd seen. Our favourites include simple ones like those on display in shops which say " Sorry, no dogs". Have they run out of dogs? My own favourite was spotted in Ireland when I was doing some work there, drove round a corner past a garage with the sign " Punctures, a pound"!

Hang on a minute Stewart- this is meant to be about the drug trial. It is- filling in the time is a part of it as is the support of family in finding distractions. Right, I'm off to listen to Kate Adie- there must be a war some place.