vivdunstan: Part of own photo taken in local university botanic gardens. Tree trunks rise atmospherically, throwing shadows from the sun on the ground. (Default)
Until Christmas I was blogging here once a week through the complete Sherlock Holmes short stories and the audio adventures of Doctor Who spinoff series Bernice Summerfield. I paused them over Christmas, and then since the start of the year have been totally felled neurologically, and for the last week extra ill with a cold probably picked up at the V&A Dundee the Friday before. Though testing negative for flu and Covid. And I'm glad I'm not much iller. But that on top of the neurological illness flare is just too much to cope with.

I'm hoping to get back to both the Sherlock Holmes and Benny (Bernice Summerfield) marathons soon. I am really enjoying rereading the Sherlock Holmes stories and writing up my thoughts after. And similarly listening to the Benny audios, many for the first time for me though not all, and writing up thoughts after. Setting myself the weekly challenge of reading/listening to these and blogging about them turned out to be huge fun, and helped me keep going, and engage with them more deeply. I am keen to resume. But will only do so when I'm stronger. But hopefully not too far off ...
vivdunstan: (oracle cards)
As usual the Urban Crow deck, and my loose 3-card past/present/future spread.

Scavenge / Freedom / Battle. Again some new to me cards this week.

This random draw does feel close to what I've been going through lately, and will be going through in the coming weeks and months. I very recently had my 10th Covid vaccine, which I expected to cause my 10th post Covid vaccine neurological auto immune illness flare. Which is really tough, and happens a week after each vaccine, and lasts for 3 long months. I'd spent the last few weeks before the vaccine trying desperately to sort things out that needed doing, including finishing (or nearly finishing) a couple of academic journal papers before I got too sick to work on them. At the same time I knew I was in as good a position as I was going to be for a long time, and wanted to grab the opportunities. Then when I had my vaccine it was a very strange feeling of limbo for the next week, feeling good - apart from flu like vaccine side effects (I had both flu and Covid vaccines together) - but knowing it was just a brief period. It almost felt psychologically like floating on air. And then this last weekend things crashed back down, with clear signs of my latest flare starting. Which is still currently relatively mild, but should get much more scary and difficult to deal with over the coming weeks.

So yes, a bit of desperate scrabbling around, and then a strange feeling of limbo, and tough times looming. I will cope though. At least I was forewarned, and have been able to prepare for it. That almost sounds like a Doctor Who quote!

vivdunstan: Photo of me from Melrose Grammar School plus NHS thanks (nhs)
Latest Covid (my 8th) and flu (umpteenth) vaccines acquired. Huge thanks to the friendly and efficient NHS Tayside staff and volunteers at Dundee city centre vaccination centre. Immensely grateful to get this, as someone who is severely immunosuppressed. And is now thankfully generating antibodies.
vivdunstan: Part of own photo taken in local university botanic gardens. Tree trunks rise atmospherically, throwing shadows from the sun on the ground. (Default)
I’m currently reading the “Hello, World!” book by famous computer scientist Brian Kernighan. It collects many of his columns for The Princetonian when he was teaching at Princeton University. In one I just read he’s writing about getting “in isolation” emails and setting his CS students exercises to estimate numbers of cases based on various scenarios. It was 2009 and swine flu. Feels horribly relevant!

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vivdunstan: Part of own photo taken in local university botanic gardens. Tree trunks rise atmospherically, throwing shadows from the sun on the ground. (Default)
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