Recent posts

#1

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Russell - January 19, 2025, 11:39:46 AM

I'm so sorry. Of all the bad things in the world, and let's face it there are a lot, Cancer has to be right up there with the worst. All I can say is I hope you have the best of luck and that you can keep fighting it and can keep hope alive, but it must be hard. It's been ten years since I lost me wife to cancer and it still hurts. If it turns out we are living in a matrix, then I'm going to be furious with the tech boys who though it was something to be added to our world.

Russell

#2

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Ed - October 03, 2024, 08:21:54 AM

Well, this is a bit of a surprise.  Every-so-often I give the forum a try and usually get some form of error. Anyway, brings back pleasant memories.  Should anyone else drop by, I hope you are well and that life is treating you good.  I'm well and truly retired with no complaints. I lie of course. I've loads of complaints, but nothing of substance.

Russell

Hi Russell, good to see you dropping in. The site was down for a good while because of a technical problem. I didn't even know it was up, to be honest.

I've had a rough couple of years since I was last posting here. I had a brain tumour which was bigger than a golf ball this time last year. If it hadn't been spotted and removed I was told that I would be dead by Christmas last year. It was metastatic renal cancer. Since then I've been following the metabolic approach to try and slow it down, as I have another met in my right lung. Surprisingly, it's worked. It was 9mm this time last year and it's 13mm now, from just taking off label drugs and supplements and switching to a low GI diet. I'm taking Alpha Lipoic Acid with low dose naltrexone this month, to see if I can shrink it. The oncologist actually said to me it was unlikely he could cure me, last year, and I've had no treatment other than surgery, so he must be wondering WTF is going on.

#3

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Russell - January 14, 2024, 07:39:06 AM

Well, this is a bit of a surprise.  Every-so-often I give the forum a try and usually get some form of error. Anyway, brings back pleasant memories.  Should anyone else drop by, I hope you are well and that life is treating you good.  I'm well and truly retired with no complaints. I lie of course. I've loads of complaints, but nothing of substance.

Russell

#4

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Ed - March 01, 2022, 05:26:12 AM

Forum keeps going into maintenance mode on its own. Not sure if we are getting hacked or what it is. Not that there's much going on lately to be fun for a hacker.

Hope all's well with everybody.

#5

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Ed - January 27, 2022, 09:42:44 AM

Hi Del, all good thanks. Just came back from two weeks in the sun in Egypt. Glad I did it, but I was a bit concerned about the potential lack of oxygen on the plane. Some cheaper airlines reduce the amount of oxygen they put into the cabin on longer flights to save money, and it was only four weeks after my op, with fluid still gurgling away in my lung. It was fine, though. The warm dry air dried up my lung and a break from British weather also made me feel a lot more like my old self.

I still get breathless from any kind of exertion, but I'm hoping that'll come right in time.

Know the January blues feeling too well. It's the short dark days of bad weather. Awful. I found taking St John's Wort extract made a surprising difference to my mood over the years. You can get it from places like Holland and Barret in capsule form, and even at Asda. I wouldn't have believed it, because I've never taken any of those types of things before, but the change is both subtle and noticeable. I went from not wanting to do anything to finding motivation out of nowhere and it subtly brightens your mood. I generally take it from October through to March if I'm feeling a bit low. Worth a try.

Don't know if you noticed, but the forum was in maintenance mode when I came to check it. I didn't put it into maintenance mode, so I'm thinking it may be a good time to stregthen my passwords and see if there are any security updates.

I hope you're all having a good start to the year.

#6

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by delboy - January 12, 2022, 03:03:26 AM

How's it going, Ed?

Got the old January blues here, struggling to find motivation for just about anything, but especially work. Time of year, I know. Give it a few weeks and I'm sure it'll all change.

Derek

#7

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Ed - December 24, 2021, 04:35:09 AM

Merry Christmas all 

#8

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Ed - December 15, 2021, 04:32:47 AM

Well done -- I thought you would manage it. Your self discipline is strong. The time was something I always struggled with. Time and tiredness. You must feel a great sense of accomplishment. Brilliant.

I remember people having varying views about the usefulness of NANO, but I don't think there are negatives, TBH. It gets you to write and write even when you don't feel like it, or you lack inspiration, or any idea where the story is going. Sure, if you took the words written and submitted it to a publisher as it is, then it's not going to be great, as you say. I think this is why the naysayers say nothing good comes out of it. From a personal development standpoint I think there are only gains.

With your editing skills and a good word count to work with, I think you'll get a decent novel out of it. Nice one, Del.

#9

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by delboy - December 14, 2021, 02:47:33 PM

Great news, Ed... well not that you're struggling with a single flight of stairs, but that you've come through okay and are working you're way back to fitness. That's brilliant!! Just great :-)

Yes, I hit my 50k with a few days to spare - but it was very tiring in it's own way. To make the 50k I had to write at almost every opportunity, every day, often at the expense of other things. But I did it.

Since then the pace has slowed, but I'm still working on the piece - did a thousand words plus today - and I'd guess it'll turn out somewhere round the 100k mark, one day. Then the first rewrite will add a load more, and the second will strip out even more!

Cheers!
Derek

#10

General Discussion / Re: The good morning, good nig...

Last post by Ed - December 14, 2021, 07:27:34 AM

Update -- still breathing. Feel a lot better at this stage than I did after the surgery to remove my kidney, though it's quite disturbing to have somebody mess with your breathing, the thing that keeps you alive. Went from running up six flights of stairs in the hospital to make my pre-op assessment on time, barely breaking a sweat (I'm usually pretty fit), to lungs exploding, gasping for breath, after climbing one flight at home this week, slowly.

Still, could be worse. Apparently it'll sort itself out over the next few weeks. I'm hitting the treadmill four or five times per day fort three minute intervals at gradually increasing speeds, then going up and down stairs three times in quick succession, gradually getting better. Started doing that Friday (sans stairs to begin with) and it's gradually getting easier.

I'm planning on doing a bit of DIY this week and eschewing work connected with the business to give myself a bit of a break.

Thanks for all the support, everybody.

Del -- how did NANOWRIMO go?