Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

Yesterday apart from lots of sunshine and meeting another friend I hadn't seen for a year and a half (I think), brought two morning calls that were reassuring and must have my blood pressure come down a few points.

The first one was from the Citizens' Advice Bureau. The lady who spoke to me seemed to think the problem with Shell wasn't as coruscated and insurmountable as I have been thinking. I still think it may turn out otherwise and I still woke up in the middle of the night fretting over it (ok, so I am a guitarist so perhaps I shouldn't use 'fretting...' oh, ok, sori about that).

The second one was from 'my' doctor, or a doctor at the local surgery. Will have to go for blood tests and a more thorough examination later on but he seemed to agree that my b/p spike may have been stress related; blood pressure has come down a lot since although it still is rather high.

It's half term week so I can go to bed late and get up late. So a couple of good days.

On Tuesday I woke up very dizzy, room spinning, a tiny bit of nausea. Given other symptoms, I took a blood pressure reading (I already am on blood pressure tablets). It was 180/something ridiculous. Ran to the pharmacy to confirm the reading (since my blood pressure monitor is a cheap thing I bought from Amazon years and years ago) and it was that. So I spent the rest of the morning and a bit more at the local health centre. been seen by a nurse first, who took another b/p reading, then by a doctor who did several things to check that I wasn't having a stroke (I wasn't). They elaborated on several possibilities including, perhaps bizarrely, an inner ear infection (because of the dizziness). I had to go back on Friday and probably later next week. Bit of a scare, 180 is already on the point of being rather dangerous, you could get a stroke. So I cancelled my two days' school teaching and ... mostly slept Wednesday and Thursday. By the end of Thursday I was feeling much better and by the time of my appointment yesterday (Friday) my blood pressure was still quite high but not on those dangerous levels.

I blame it partly on the ongoing situation with Shell, who insist I am their customer, have never paid for gas, owe them £8K which I have to pay right now, have to produce every gas meter reading of the last ten years and ask my current supplier to reimburse me of every penny I've paid them (presumably so I pay them, but it would not be even a third, perhaps not even a quarter of what Shell believe I owe them). I clearly do not want to do any of those things, have gone to the Citizens' Advice Bureau but haven't heard from them, who don't seem to have an email address I can just write to and ask how it all is going.

Trying to avoid salt and caffeine in those three days meant the most boring meals of my life.