Back in business

My blogging stats are even worse than Simon G's these days but not much seems worth chronicling. If I go on about my back being, er, back, it'll seem like I'm feeling sorry for myself and whingeing.

Well, all right, then, ever since I did a bit of bending in the garden about three weeks ago my back has been killing me – my own fault, I suppose – and the two most comfortable positions I can adopt at the moment are upright in my office chair and lying down. I've got another appointment with the rheumatologist in a couple of days but it is proving something of a logistical nightmare trying to figure out how I can get to Salisbury Hospital either in my office chair or lying down. Any ideas?

In other news, it is almost sad to relate that little of note occurred to mar the enjoyment of our recent holiday in France (at the same campsite), unlike last year when – as you may remember- it rained continuously and we were exposed to the menace of the oak processionary caterpillar. I am pleased to say that of that wretched multiped there was not a trace and, for me, the holiday was totally spot-free, even from those induced by the mosquito; I attribute that most satisfactory state of affairs to the quinine content of Schweppe's Tonic Water. Apparently, the appropriate authorities and other campsites had begun to take the threat of the OPC in Northern Europe much more seriously and the whole site had been chemically treated via helicopter earlier in the year (with, so far as I am aware, the loss of no clients at all), the exercise being part of an overall scheme to test various methods of controlling the problem. As an aircraft was used, I assume it must have been a pilot scheme.

A bientot!