I had all these things I was going to do. And then I remembered that working is quite wearing, and by the time I've got home, had dinner and a lie down, there's not a lot of evening left. Especially when I have to have a lie down later on. I much preferred not working, I hardly got tired or dizzy over the Christmas holidays.

But I was still going to get lots done this weekend. Until I got dizzy on Thursday. Since this is a random dizziness for no reason, it takes a week to go away. After two days of not working, I'm now bored. Not because I have nothing to do (I have plenty to read and write) but because I feel fine when I'm lying down and want to get up and do things. But I can't. It's so frustrating.

Last week was ridiculously busy at work, so I was looking forward to a weekend with nothing planned, getting on with a few jobs. Sadly my immune system had other ideas and I had a sore throat and a cold instead. Although I did sleep for twelve hours on Saturday night, which made me feel so much less tired.

So I spent the week feeling rubbish and improved towards the end of the week. Which is the opposite of how I usually feel when a week goes by.

This weekend I spent getting the jobs done that I should have been doing last week. Oh, and spending the whole of this morning fixing my computer. Theoretically it was an easy fix, if only my Ubuntu installation pen drive. But I have now added to my list of Linux distros I've used with Puppy Linux. Which looks like the Windows sort of environment with Linux icons. And barks when it starts up, which frightened the life out of me because I wasn't expecting it.

I did finish a fic a couple of weeks ago and then didn't want to post at the same time as the other one, otherwise I'd look far more prolific than I really am. But I have now: John Chesterton: Time Lord (spoilers for When a Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler). When I first had the idea, at the end of the first half of the series, I was intending to write something serious. But by the time I came up with a plot it ended up being not terribly serious at all.

This week I have mostly been procrastinating about doing anything. Well, I did for Monday and Tuesday. Although Tuesday WordPress got updated, so I was thinking about doing that and then playing with it. Which I will do at some point.

Yesterday was ballet - the last one of the term. Before it started I was sitting on the floor, having changed my shoes and I realised I couldn't tell whether I was moving, which isn't a good sign. But I was fine until we did stretches when I definitely had moments of dizziness - I have no idea why that would set it off. But once I lay down on the floor I looked up at the ceiling and it was going round and round...

I might have been ok after the first round of pirouettes (which were going really well), but it didn't occur to me until afterwards that the reason I could only get halfway round before I fell over was because my balance had gone. After the class I walked home very slowly. And managed to nearly fall over in the bath because I had my head upside down to dry my hair.

After that I just didn't have a brain or the energy to get up off the sofa. But I did go to bed before it was really dark. This morning I thought I wasn't really well enough to drive. So I left a bit earlier than usual and got the bus. My drive to work takes about 20 minutes. The bus to the centre of town where I used to work took 20 minutes. Then I waited 30 minutes for another bus that took 5 minutes to get me 10 minutes walk away from work. My total journey time from my house to work was 1 hour and 15 minutes and I was 40 minutes late.

Which is just crazy and the reason I don't get the bus usually (plus it would also cost £9 more a week than I spend on petrol). I got a lift home which meant I got home earlier than usual. And now I am spending the evening doing nothing but lying on the sofa.

On the plus side, at least it's not next Thursday where I have to go to a first aid course. And to get there on a bus I would have to leave half an hour earlier and I think I would still be a bit late - the bus takes an hour, whereas driving the back way will take about 20 minutes. And the government wonders why people don't use public transport...

So that's the tennis over with for another year. Well, until the US Open in August, which isn't on TV and is mostly at night. The evenings suddenly seem so much longer, I almost don't know what to do with them.

Of course it helps to have some time in the evening. Last week was the end of the Rotaract year, so Monday and Tuesday I was out at both the Rotary clubs handover dinners, which took all evening and meant I had two late nights. Wednesday was ballet as usual, Thursday I had stuff to catch up with and before I knew it it was the end of the week. So then after all that I woke up dizzy on Saturday morning, which wasn't really a surprise.

As of last Friday I'm no longer a Rotaractor. And my Rotaract club no longer exists, which is the sadder thing of the two. We've been talking about it and sorting out closing it for so long it hasn't quite sunk in yet. And we stopped doing stuff every Tuesday a while back, so I won't even notice much on Tuesday. I do still have some website stuff to do, but there's no rush. Now I have all this free time I could conceivably do something with it. I have established I can go out two nights a week (but not three). I have lots of ideas, the trouble is having the energy to do them.

Blogging hasn't been top of my list of things to recently due to lack of time and energy.

A couple of weeks ago we moved offices, so it now takes longer to get there and back. But I have been exploring different routes and discovered they all take the same amount of time. Although there's one I don't really want to do in the winter because it's narrow and has no streetlights - the main road doesn't have streetlights either, but at least it's the main road.

So then I overdid it with work and extra driving and randomly waking up at 5.30am for no reason. I was so tired a couple of weeks ago I slept during the day. And then slept for twelve hours, which would have been better if I hadn't then woken up dizzy.

So then I spent a week being dizzy. Which was just what I wanted when I was already feeling behind.

I went to see a ballet choreographed by my former teacher. Which I actually enjoyed (the only other time I went to the ballet I found watching the orchestra far more interesting than watching the dancing). It was interesting to see them perform movements we've learnt, but I got to see how they're supposed to look.

I did manage to see a house that I liked and now I am moving into it! I had a list of all the things to look at (so I know, for example, that the bathroom mirror is too high for me to see in, but at least isn't over the sink, so won't involve me standing on one foot and leaning over the sink to see in it), but I mostly just liked it. I am moving mid-August. I need to sort out some men with a van to pay to move my furniture, but any help anyone can offer would be appreciated as it's not likely to do my dizziness any help for a start... If anyone is curious I can message/email them the estate agent's listing.

I also signed up for femgenficathon, which is due around the time I'm moving. And 100 drabbles of summer, which is due a couple of weeks later. Neither of them have any penalties for defaulting, so we'll see. The main trouble I'm having with femgenficathon is which female character to write, there are so many to choose from...

I am on the last edit of my Big Bang. I will be done before Wimbledon.

Tennis! As great as it was to see some of the French Open I could have done without the camera work. Any time the players weren't playing a point the shot would change to the spectators and then move along and zoom in on a player and wave about and zoom in and out. I swapped to the radio commentary at one point because it was making me dizzy. I did hear the commentator remark that Federer looked calm after losing the first point in the tie-break. Which of course is nothing like how he usually is... I've seen a bit of Queens so far and I'm much preferring the camera work. And looking forward to going to the final on Sunday. Fingers crossed for nice weather (or at least no rain).

I've just been ill. All last week I kept waking up really early and being busy, so I just got worse and worse. To the point where I went to the Rotary District Conference on Friday and slept better than I had all week, despite the room being hot, the window being open and my roommate snoring on and off. Of course after that I didn't sleep so well and Rotary likes to start early, so I'm back to being dizzy again, although not as bad as last week yet, but then I haven't been back to work yet.

On the plus side, I finished the first draft of my Big Bang fic. It comes to 17,600 words, which is quite a lot considering the first draft is more of a plot outline with dialogue. I have to go back and change bits of plot now. Well, I say now, I mean after I've done Remix. But I have already decided what I'm going to do, I just need to find the energy to do it.

I also got my Ebook Reader (but not the cover, but that's a long story). It's great having so many books on it and I'm loving that you can change the direction you swipe your finger to turn the page - I always went the wrong way on Dad's. So far I've filled it with a couple of books from Gutenberg and a load of fics from last year's AU Big Bang which I've been meaning to read for months.

Speaking of, while I was looking for the 2010 masterlist for AU Big Bang, I looked at people signing up and what they're intending to write. And I thought there should be a Lynda Day at the Chalet School...

After a week of doing not a lot except for a bit of work and watching a lot of Stargate and Quantum Leap (and not a lot of TV - I have now have three episodes of Taggart, two of Midsomer Murders and two of Being Human to watch), I am finally pretty much better. Better being a relative term.

Although I am really annoyed that as of Tuesday, the channel that showed Chuck and Leverage to those of us without Sky or cable, is now only for people who have Sky or cable. And I suspect the chances of either of those two programmes being on Freeview are small. So annoying. The stupid thing is it would be cheaper to buy them on DVD (never mind rent) than to get Sky just to watch 40 episodes. Or in my case, not quite get round to watching for ages.

On the positive side, this week I have been working on my Big Bang fic. I have 3000 words - of plot notes. But I found last time that if I write down exactly what's in each scene it makes it easier to write the scenes. And it's easier to move them around at the plotting stage than at the writing stage. Now that's done I have 30 scenes. I ought to start writing on Monday really. It's just that the first 13 are from Jack O'Neill's point of view and I've not written from his point of view before. Although I have now watched so much Stargate that every voice is starting to sound like him.

After selenay wrote a post all about her back, I thought I'd write one about what it is I've got. Not least because I keep getting asked questions about it and what I can do etc.

Read more...

Given that it's getting close to Christmas I thought that things would slow down this week, but no. I went to see the ISIHAC tour, which was funny, although that didn't do much for my ability to breathe. But it gave me an excuse to eat at the Noodle Bar. A lot of it was the same as the one I saw earlier in the year, but since I can't remember the jokes after it finishes, that didn't matter. And it had Jack Dee as chairman, who was very good. At the end they dressed Jack Dee in gold tinsel and gold tinsel-edged reindeer antlers, and gave him some jingle bells. He looked ecstatic about it.

I drove to work on Tuesday, having not driven since a week last Friday. It turns out that's quite a long time not to drive, as I was struggling to remember how to drive. I'd happily get the bus to work more often if it wasn't for the fact that it takes twice as long, has no heating, only goes once an hour so is useless if you have to stay late and costs more than driving. And they wonder why no one gets buses round here...

I have discovered the secret to sleeping and breathing (apart from not lying down): don't move and give your chest plenty of room. Well, it worked last night. The trouble I've been having is that I keep coughing instead of breathing, which then makes my throat hurt more. I am now reaching the point where I really want to lie down and drink orange juice. I'm so sick of water and I can't drink my milk because it's just not that nice.

Yesterday I realised that my dry throat and cough was actually a sore throat and asthma. Although the latter improved a bit this morning when I realised that my brown inhaler had run out. The trouble with inhalers that the only way to tell they've run out is if you take the canister out and shake it, and can't feel or hear anything moving in it.

Of course, the only two nights I have anything on in the next two weeks are Monday and Tuesday. Which is just typical. But given how busy I've been and all the bugs that have been going round work, I'm not at all surprised that I'm ill. Just glad that it's warmed up a bit.

On the plus side I now have a clean house and lots of food due to shopping and baking.

Also, after thinking about it for the best part of two days, I put myself in the anonymous holiday love meme.

I was thinking I ought to post as it's been a while and then thought, what do I have to say? I feel like I do nothing at the moment. Which is mostly true. I have a social life on Tuesdays with Rotaract. Last Tuesday we went bowling. I did pretty well and didn't get too dizzy - but I did have to walk up to the lane with the ball in both hands, bend down, make sure I wasn't going to fall over, then throw the ball.

I feel quite good at the moment, which is pretty much related to work calming down and me getting some sleep. I keep going through phases of waking up at 6 or 6.30 and if you do it occasionally then you could argue that you didn't need that much sleep. But when you keep doing it and get tireder and tireder and have to go to bed earlier and earlier, that's not a help. So far this week I've only woken up at 6.30am twice, and once dreamed I had, which was a bit surreal.

Since I actually have a brain for a change, I have managed two drafts of my Remix fic. I'm quite excited about it and quite happy with it, so hopefully I'll get it finished soon, before I start feeling terrible again. Staying up late for the election in two weeks isn't going to help with that, but that's life.

I have decided that Sports Resort is my new favourite game on the Wii. I love archery on it - you hold the remote in your left hand and pull the bow back with the nunchuck, so it's much more like archery in real life. It keeps your progress like Wii Sports does, so you can see how you're improving (or not in tennis in my case), but there are other goals you can get (like getting 10s with your three arrows in archery for example), which makes it fun.

Speaking of, I think I'll go and do some Wii playing now, before HIGFNY and Outnumbered...

After a week I'm now sick of the election. Or rather, what I'm sick of is listening to politicians fail to answer questions. Although there was an amusing moment the other day when I was listening to the news on my way home, wasn't quite concentrating and thought Nick Clegg was Tony Robinson... Chris Addison has an amusing blog about it all. After my post about not being able to decide who to vote for I discovered the BBC website has a page where you can look at the policies of three parties side by side. So I spent a whole two days as an undecided, and decided to vote for the same party I decided I would have voted for in 1997 had the election been a week later.

I got my remix assignment and the person I'm remixing has mostly written in fandoms I know. So I could write pretty much anything. I've been skim-reading and I think I've decided, but reserve the right to change my mind.

I've discovered I'm intolerant to all gluten, although I can eat quite a bit of it. At this rate I'll be intolerant to all food in ten years time. If they could just invent a pill to take every day that means you don't have to eat that would do me. Although I'd forget to take it half the time...

Work's been really busy for about three weeks now, I think. It was really quiet leading up to that, so I thought it was coming, just not quite this badly. On top of being ill already and annoyingly not sleeping, it all completely knocked me out. Or nearly - I did work from home the past two days and I didn't work much on Thursday. But I'm really looking forward to Easter and doing nothing for four days. And hopefully sleep later than 7am because I'm clearly not getting enough sleep.

But I have watched my Ashes to Ashes series 1 DVD, so now I am all excited about the new series. And the serious amount of telly on over the Easter weekend! I went to set the video for it today, wondered why it was telling me I wasn't taping QI and Ashes to Ashes was on at 8pm, then realised the times were in GMT. And I can never remember what my PVR does when we change the clocks, so I'll leave it until tomorrow.

I signed up for remix. I'm going to be writing either Doctor Who (new), Doctor Who (all), Stargate, Atlantis or SJA. I have managed to do some writing this month - I have stuff awaiting the first beta go through at the moment. And maybe at some point I'll get my life back again...

Yesterday is the one year anniversary of me being ill. But since it was Rotaract last night I didn't get the time to post here between that and the skating and the curling (only 8 round robin matches to go!). I'm a lot better than I was a year ago, but then I had labyrinthitis and couldn't move without feeling like I was on a Waltzer. Now I'm just recovering from it.

I feel ok about it at the moment, but that's because I'm having a good week. At the moment my aims are:

• To stay up late for the general election, if I get one for my birthday, as is being predicted (everyone I've told about this thinks I'm crazy, but it's exciting! Especially at the moment when it's not clear who'll win).
• To go to Wimbledon on the first Thursday - when we have tickets for Centre Court! - and get through the day (it's usually tiring...)
• To go on some days out this year, like I was planning to last year
• To go back to New York to see hhertzof's bunnies and Flushing Meadow, and maybe go back to Canada too, since I can only cope with America for a week and that's pushing it. This I obviously can't do until I'm really sure I'm better, so that's probably more likely to be next year at this rate.

In contrast to last year, I'm not planning anything at all this year because I have absolutely not idea at all when I might be better.

I can nearly breathe out of my nose. This wouldn't normally be an achievement but it is the first time in a week. My mouth and throat were so dry that I was drinking 1.5l of water a day, which is ridiculous. I know you're supposed to drink 2l a day, but I was going to the toilet every hour and only really drink about half a litre a day usually. I just don't have the capacity for large amounts of liquid.

And a drabble meme from lost_spook I've been waiting to put up until I'm feeling well enough to think:

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request that I write a drabble of any pairing/character with a prompt. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level.

Although feel free to ignore that last sentence - it's not like I'm going to be checking. By first ten people, I mean first ten notifications in my inbox regardless of whether they come from my blog, LJ or DW.

There's a list of fandoms I've written in on the left of my fanfic archive, but feel free to request anything I know. If I really can't write it I'll just get you to pick something else.

It's just one thing after another at the moment. Last week I was doing really well, felt really good and consequently overdid it. So this week I've felt terrible and been busy, which hasn't helped. I'm just at the point of starting to feel a bit better again and now I have a cold.

Why can't I just sleep until I'm better? Or more to the point, why is it that whenever I put 301 on there's either no Australian Open or they're just finishing? And why do we always have to listen to Sam Smith rabbiting on annoyingly?

There were all these things I was going to do with my week off (apart from watch/listen to a lot of tennis). I knew I'd be fine because I'd get a lot of sleep and wouldn't have to do much.

At least, that was the theory. In practise yesterday's random asthma has turned into a cold and sore throat. I don't have a blocked up nose, but the rest of me feels bad enough to make up for it.

So everything will have to be wait and I'm just hoping I'll feel well enough to go to Collectormania on Saturday, not least because I've paid for some bits of it already. I really wish I was the sort of person that sleeps when they're ill, because at least then I wouldn't feel like this.

I had an MRI on Monday, which I've been meaning to write about all week, but it's been a bitch of a week. So have a review of my week, including what it's like to have an MRI (when you're dizzy). Read more...

I am off to see the World All Round Gymnastics Finals tomorrow, in the Millennium Dome, so I have tomorrow and this afternoon off. Which is probably just as well because I'm quite dizzy and a bit snotty. I suspect the two things are related. On the plus side, when I'm recovering on Saturday there is at least plenty to watch, despite there being no Merlin (the TV series).

Everyone who signed up for the Sarah & Harry ficathon got a story in, which I am glad about. I wrote Not Just a Pretty Face. There was quite a bit of time between me putting everything into the posting box and actually coming up with a title...

I got all excited looking at fandoms for Yuletide. How I'm going to narrow it down to four, I don't know.

Today, or yesterday depending on how you count it, I've been ill for seven months.

Things I have been doing:

Watched Generation Kill, which turned out to be surprisingly good. After seven episodes I can name seven characters, which is pretty good going (Ray, Trombley, Reporter, Brad, LT, Captain America (who I recognise from somewhere but can't work out where), Godfather). Plus there's also the bloke that wears glasses who lost his helmet. There may or may not have been other speaking characters, I got a bit confused - they all dress the same, it doesn't help!

I finished v2 of my Sarah and Harry ficathon story. So I have a draft or two to go and it will be about 5000 words. Handily, the SG Rare Pairings ficathon starts up once that's done and I'm hoping there will be some Jack/Elizabeth prompts for me to write (and I'll be leaving some, just as soon as I work out what). Then there'll be Yuletide and I so want to add Teachers to the list of fandoms. And after one episode of Merlin I want to request Gaius & Merlin again.

I'm meeting Avon on Sunday, yay!

I have a new shower. It's cunningly fitted into the corner of the bath so if you want to stand under it you have to stand on the bit of the bath that starts going upwards. So I take it down - which required me to take the shower head off so I could get it out from the middle of the soap dish so it would actually stretch far enough to shower with, and to rinse the bath with.

There really isn't anything else at all going on in my life at the moment. Just lots of things I want to do.