I didn’t do my walk yesterday since I was in the office again this week. I took the Victoria Line back from the office and two people seemingly had passed out — one at Victoria, one at Oxford Circus. The heat was almost unbearable.
Oxford Circus is an oven even on normal days. At near 30degC heat it is more like a furnace.
There was immense relief in the evening when it started to rain, but that relief was soon turned in comfortable, sticky, sweaty feelings as the water then evaporated and made the air really humid, making it almost impossible to sleep. I didn’t get any decent sleep till around 2am and FitBit noticed that with my sleep pattern.
Fortunately, it seems like there’s rain forecast for the rest of the week at least.
Have been slacking off logging my exercise again, but there’s a reason.
It’s TOO. DAMN. HOT.
Like, crazy hot. And when the sun shines into your bedroom where you’re trying to work so you have to have the curtains closed while you work, and the fan only provides some minor relief, it doesn’t help
Meanwhile, today, my walk was comfortable — even though it was hot, the breeze helped matters a bit and made it not feel too bad.
No walk today as I was back in the office for one day this week. With the 25degC heat, it was not a pleasant journey. I tried to offset it by using only the airconditioned trains route (Thameslink, Great Northern, District/Circle) but that didn’t make it much more comfortable.
Still topped my step count for the day, as I normally do for the commute.
Another hot day on the trot, and yet another day without a cloud in the sky, although somehow it did seem to spatter with rain for short periods, I’ve been told (but I never noticed that happening)
I started this post over a year ago, then abandoned it and though perhaps its high time I actually finished it.
You may recall I lost my uncle to cancer in October 2017 and felt I should write down the phases of dealing with the death
Stage 0 — Normality
This is the normal day-to-day life no indication of any problems in the future
Stage 1 — Terminal
This is where you or your loved one is diagnosed with an illness that cannot (normally) be recovered from.
Stage 2 — Death & Disbelief
Immediately after death, this starts. You run through a period of “this can’t be happening”, “this has got to be a dream” and keep wanting to wake up from the nightmare, even though it isn’t one.
Stage 3 — Guilt & Denial
After you’ve gotten past the “this can’t be happening”, you get to “this isn’t happening” — you don’t want to believe this is true and refuse to believe this is true. Also, you start second-guessing yourself thinking “did I do everything I could to save them?” “could I have done something differently?” “could they still be alive had I picked up on that symptom just a day earlier?”
This stage lasts the longest, and to some, the guilt consumes their lives
Stage 4 — Acceptance
The hardest stage to reach is acceptance. You accept the death and move on. Some keep a piece of the loved one with them — a piece of jewellery, a photo, a locket, a favourite song — something that lets them remember them going forward or when they want the feeling of warm, loving memories.
Where am I on this list? Stage 4. I have photos of my uncle in Google Photos I can look back on whenever I want to remember him. I have pictures of him playing with my cousin’s children; I have fond memories of playing poker with him (and me losing :-) ); I have memories of having drinks with him — he was an alchoholic, but really was loose when drinking. I remember that I also didn’t know him as well as I thought I did. His drinking buddy took the pedestal at his funeral and told about how he donated food from his KFC-style shop to people at the pub.
I really did not know my uncle as well as I thought I did.
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