Monday, September 28, 2009

Bloatermog An Indian Summer: Most of the UK are enjoying this great weather at the moment, which we call 'An Indian Summer,' and according to the oracle, Wiki, is described as 'an informal expression given to a spell of sunny and warm weather in the autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, typically in October or early November.' Our 'proper' summer was puttering along quite nicely during May, June and July; and then this drop from High to Low pressure drifted in and cocked it all up. But now it's back we are enjoying, nay, even revelling in it, despite its slightly early appearance.
As a small child, I always marvelled at how aircraft, vehicles on the road, people's voices, the waves crashing on the shore etcetera, always sounded so much brighter and fresher during the summer months. Yet in the autumn and winter, those same sounds are dull, dreary, and not very inspiring. And it seems to be due to these changes in pressure, and we even feel so much brighter and alert when it's High than we do when it's Low. It probably has a lot to do with our mood, too, and those dismal, dark evenings with less daylight hours which we will be plunging into again next month, aren't going to help.
It's an ideal time to go abroad, I reckon, and Mrs. B and I did so from our 25th Wedding Anniversary onwards; when she said "We've never flown, so for our 25th anniversary, we will." Married in early December 1973, we enjoyed the subsequent occasions abroad around that time of year, spending several of them in Fuertevetura, one in Gran Canaria, a couple more in Fuerteventura, then two in Thailand and the final one in Kenya in 2005.
By this time, Mrs. B had developed tinitus, and on the final two or three of those flights it was agony for her when the plane took off and landed. This was due to the change in cabin pressure, although not quite the same as those we were talking about above, these were a bit more instant, drastic and severe. When the aircraft levelled out it wasn't too bad, but the agony of it brought an end to flying anywhere for a holiday.
The tinitus is also the reason why she is unable to go to gigs any more, but not the reason she has it. Really, with the hunderds of gigs attended in my lifetime, and quite a few dozen of them being Motorhead concerts, it ought to be me who's suffering tinitus. But there's nothing which can be done about it, despite Mrs. B searching for a cure from seeing the village Doctor right the way through to the final NHS tests when she was told nothing could be done.
Such a great pity, but unlike me she seems to have passed through the desire to rock until she drops, and although I miss her by my side at the gigs; she wasn't really enjoying it anyway.