Be Excellent To Each Other

I have an ant infestation in my new house, around the kitchen annoyingly, which despite repeated attempts to exterminate with ant powder, is not showing any signs of slowing down.

Little bastards.

Take off, nuke the site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure

Do you know where the colony is? Ant powder in the colony is the only way IME

Aardvarks.

I don't, unfortunately. I think it's somewhere inside the kitchen, somewhere that's inaccessible to mere mortals such as myself.

I have a pest controller coming on Thursday morning to sort the blighters out. I used him before, many moons ago, for the flour mite infestation that I had in an old flat.

I told him this on the phone, and he thought for a couple of seconds and then said "you used to keep tarantulas as pets, didn't you?"

Shockingly good memory!

I fucking hate ants. I also have a dog, so I’ve become familiar with Indorex which is a flea spray for around the house. Indorex (and other types of the same thing you can get from anywhere like Pets at Home. Basically it’s an insecticide for getting of fleas) is FUCKING LETHAL. It might not get the Queen of the ants but it’ll stop the fuckers dead in their tracks. It ain’t cheap at about £15 or so for a massive can of the stuff but it’s the only thing I’ve ever used against the army of little bastards that will ever stop them. I spray some outside around the house to stop them coming near and bugs just being dying all over the place. Yeah, it ain’t a friendly spray. It’s like agent orange for insects.

Yeah, I used Indorex for a flea breakout once. It was ridiculously effective.

My Covid jab has been cancelled for a second time. First time I had to wait two weeks to rebook, now it was cancelled 30 minutes before my appointment this morning. I’m booking it elsewhere this time, and it’s tomorrow, but my appointment anxiety is in overdrive.

I work for the NHS so I had my first three jabs, but I skipped it last year - I think I was just a bit jabbed out and because my mum (85 but with the heart/lungs of a much older woman) got Covid and survived and then so did BASTARD TONY at work (who you'd think would die if he stood up too quickly) also survived it, I sort of figured Covid just wasn't a big deal anymore.

Thing is, I keep running into people who got Covid and it's left a lingering lowering of fitness/energy in them. I'm seeing that more and more. I always think that 'energy levels' are super subjective but I feel like I might jab up this year as I'm working hard to keep the fitness I have and really can't afford to lose much more of it!

My hope is that any infection I do get will be less impactful in the short and the long term. Have you had it before? I’ve caught it twice, this year and last year. I’m incredibly grateful to have avoided it in the initial year or two. I’m not sure how many Covid jabs I’ve had. Maybe eight? I know I ended up with extra due to an admin error at one point, but I’ve kept up with my jabs, like I do with my ‘flu jabs.

Apart from the appointment anxiety element, and a slightly sore arm (though my last booster didn’t give me a dead arm at all), I figure it’s little to no effort and hopefully a little help.

I was significantly less impacted by my current COVID bout than I was when I got it in 2021/2. Back then I was completely wiped out for a few days.

Whether that's because of a different variant or a higher level of immunity after several vaccinations I don't know. Anecdotally it's less of a problem for most people but some still have a really bad time with it.

Once. In the MOST STUPID WAY EVER.

You know how people conceal zombie bites in films and you think no one would ever do that?

Well, in 2022 I went to see the band Turnstile with my brother. I live up north but my family are all from London so I went to stay at his flat. Spent the day hanging out, went to play snooker etc. Then in the evening got the Tube up to the venue, sat next to him for the whole gig (we had seats right at the back but that's fine as I'm old and Turnstile are a young punk band). So we're talking with all this noise in the background between sets (ie - yelling in each others' faces).

Then, very cagey, the next day he says 'we should test for Covid' so we do. He's positive. Then he says 'ah right... yeah I had a very faint line yesterday but thought it'd be alright.'

TWAT! You're 60! He knew better, he just didn't want to miss the gig.

So I had full blown Covid for a week when I got home. I slept in my study for five days and then five days in my wife still managed to get it.

Oh no, I’d have been SO MAD about that. Especially as he had literal proof that he had it. The thing is, if he told you, you could have at least made an informed decision.

Russell has been completely laid out for a couple of weeks both times. Last time I didn’t get any rest at all as Russell passed the infection to me and then got better, but instead of getting back to routine he decided to hang around me all day and not letting me rest, so I just had to suffer through both it and him.

More appointment drahma:

After two cancellations previously I had a notice saying that today’s appointment was cancelled. I remade an appointment for tomorrow before cancellation, and so then phoned my doctors surgery to see if they were doing them as that’s where I had mine last year.

Yes, they said. I could book one for today, at 5:12pm. Excellent.

Ten minutes later they phoned back to cancel. Again.

So now I have rebooked another, in ANOTHER place, for tomorrow.

Absolute shambles.

So part of my cPTSD results in a lot of appointment anxiety, and let me tell you that right now it is at MAX VOLUME.

I work for the NHS and it's so fked now in terms of how bad things are with appointments.

I guess that's 13 years of Tory governance and whatever but the standards are so low now.

My previous boss used to be a nurse back in the 70s and she was saying how back then if she left any kind of messiness or didn't make a bed perfectly, the matron would slap her leg and make her do it properly. Now, yeah, that's some old school bullshit that nurses shouldn't have to tolerate, but two years ago my wife's aunt was in the Royal (a hospital in Liverpool which is absolutely dogshit) and was woken up at 2am on a ward of elderly women because the nurse there was breaking up with her boyfriend over the phone loudly.

The NHS has been enshitified. But it's also a miracle that it's as good as it is as well.