tick bite by Simon Aulman
Nope I'm stuck at home more or less and it's unlikely that Elvis sang his best stuff while he was housebound and I am just like him - on Saturday I was way off on Dorset heathland and going down paths whose bushes either side were tangled, ferns and woods too, and wherever it happened an especially nasty tick got me on the shin. I'd wear shorts all the time if I could and I know it's stupid and I try not to but on Saturday I was wearing my favourites and so I am totally to blame - lesson learnt. This is a bit of enforced music - not much else to do at home that I like doing - though admittedly, apart from long walks, there's even less that I like to do outside.
At first the area round the bite went red and it was really painful if I arched my toes right up or stretched them right down and if I walked for more than about 5 minutes the whole ankle became painful. By about Monday the redness had pretty much gone but the swelling was worse and the pain was just the same. I am very casual about tick bites. I lived in a caravan mainly in long-grass fields among woodland in the New Forest through most of my 20s and no-exaggeration I was being bitten by several ticks every day. Lyme Disease was just then becoming a thing in the UK, coming over from the US - I was a medical curiosity and was one of the first Brits to ever get that yellow ring around a bite which told you that it was a something-or-other worrysome - thanks to an article in a newspaper I knew more about Lyme Disease than any doctor I met.
I don't think I ever took or was given antibiotics and as far as I know, if I ever did contract any degree of Lyme Disease, it's had no symptoms. So far this year on my long walks I've noticed more ticks on me than in any year for ages. Saturday's was the first tick to upset my body this year. It's still quite painful now and is only getting better very slowly. The pain is at its least when my ankle is raised higher than my body - e.g. when I'm lying on my sofa, legs propped up on pillows, watching DVDs - so that's what I've been doing.
Favourite so far was Harold And Maude from the early 70s - one of those films about two eccentrics who had the luck to run into each other. It's one of those films that makes me want to change my life and makes me wish I had that kind of luck more often - think it's only ever happened to me about three times. Brian And Charles has that same idea, though differently.
But in the end I thought I'd make some music. I think I've got the knob on my mike at the wrong setting. I changed it a while back because I had no idea why it was the way it was, and now things sound even worse. I'm not blaming my tools. This is classic pure top-notch bad workmanship.
Well I've still got to nip out the shops once in a while. This morning I made it to the local Lidl. I was wearing shorts. I bumped into someone I know. She asked me how I was and then regretted it. I pointed down to my ankle and told her about the tick bite. She looked at it and ooohed and aaaahed and told me it looked serious and I ought to at least have a bash at getting antibiotics asap. I couldn't help noticing that she was looking at the wrong leg. And she's a nurse. I'm probably the only person in the country who thinks that spending on the NHS should be reduced. Maybe to zero. Please let's just let this new Monkey Emergency thingy come on over and kill us all - I'll be staying indoors till I can walk and then a tiny bit longer till after everyone else has died of NHS Care and then I'll just drive random cars around just like Maude till the petrol runs out and I really can't think of a happier time in my whole life.
recorded/photo's today
