May is always a good month the evenings are starting to get nice and light, it’s warming up and we have two bank holidays! The first bank holiday which was on the first weekend of the month I cycled down to the New Forest about fifty miles away, I’ve been wanting to try my new Hilleberg tent out that I’ve had since before Christmas and my new duck down sleeping bag which I also brought at about the same time, but with my back being the way it was I couldn’t! Found the cycle down ok and didn’t struggle, it was a fairly flat ride though! I did as expected struggle with the camping part, I was comfortable enough sleeping it was just the setting up and the de-camping I struggled with, and it caused me to be in quite a lot of pain! Luckily once I’d taken some painkillers the pain eased off! I was pleased with my new tent and sleeping bag although I still prefer my old tent, but unfortunately they don’t make that model anymore! The second weekend in the month we went up to that there London town to see the Grand Designs Live show based on the Channel 4 TV series presented by Kevin McCloud, the event was packed with over 500 exhibitors, across seven different sections, covering interiors, gardens, food and house wares, kitchens and bathrooms, home improvement, self-build, renovations, technology and shopping, which was something different to do and good fun, despite the nightmare we had on the underground trying to get there. Parts of the network were closed due to engineering works, so we ended up going backwards and forwards between two stations thinking that we were on the wrong tube, until we realised that the tube was only going that far and we had to get on another line!
The third weekend in the month was another bank holiday so I decided to go away camping with Julie. Initially my idea was to catch the train to Southampton with the bikes and then cycle the remaining 10/15 miles to the New Forest, well I couldn’t really expect Julie to cycle the fifty miles there could I??? The weather forecast for that weekend was typical bank holiday weather heavy rain and strong winds! With that in mind I decided to put the bikes on the car and drive down, at least if we had the car we could get out a bit easier rather than be stuck in the tent. We set off for the New Forest at about lunchtime on the Friday and arrived there by about 3 o’clock, it was very wet, there were puddles everywhere and some roads were closed due to flooding! Our first choice campsite was blocked the road leading to it was closed due to the flooding, our second choice campsite was struggling as half of the site was flooded so they were turning people away, we phoned a few more sites but the story was the same they were all full due to it being a busy weekend and most of the sites had limited pitches due to floods! I was really bored with this by now and was ready to come home, but in the end Julie persuded me that we should try further along the coast and go to Purbeck, which as it turned out was a very good choice as the horrendous weather that had been forecast never materialized, or at least not in Purbeck. We had a rain shower first thing on Saturday morning and another shower late Saturday night but that was it, down in the New Forest it had rained all weekend we later found out from some friends that had been down there. It was a nice weekend spent walking part of the South West Coast Path and cycling in the Purbeck hills, with the evenings spent down the local pub talking to other campers and locals.
Had a bit of a moan to the hospital at the beginning of the month about the lack of physio I’ve been having! I’d only had four appointments and was still doing more or less the same exercises I was given when I was discharged from hospital way back at the beginning of March! When I returned to see my consultant in mid April he was happy with the way the operation went and said that everything seemed fine and that I just needed to have more physio on my back to strengthen it up. The following day I saw my physiotherapist at my local hospital and relayed what the consultant had said, hoping to get some extra physio, but there weren’t any appointments available and I’ve now got to wait until the middle of June! Really starting to get down about my back now, after initially feeling a lot better, I now seem to be going backwards and am in a lot of pain! I’m now taking anti inflammatories and painkillers everyday! More worryingly my left leg keeps going completely numb at the drop of a hat and gets all tingly and I have a lot of lower back pain!
