Beeeyoootiful day. Cloudless blue sky, no wind, 22degC, very tolerable.

The title is meant as a riff on “milestones” – another of my high school mates died last week, Bob Farmer. It’s his funeral today. I didn’t know he’d been ill as I haven’t seen him for ten years, but I’m told he was lately having to carry an oxygen cylinder around with him. He was a heavy smoker, so I would guess COPD. I’m so glad I gave up in 1988.

The fact is that I’m feeling unwell too. Not lung problems, but I think I have a developing kidney stone. It’s not the full ‘nuclear explosion’ of pain, just a dull ache on the left side, slowly getting worse, and a general weakness and tiredness. I’ve finally managed to get an appointment with a urologist but, as usual, it’s not for another month, mid September. I may end up in the emergency department before then.

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I had to call an ambulance on Saturday, as well. It wasn’t a severe emergency, but as I was coming through the back door with three bags of groceries plus my general ‘handbag’, I lost my balance as I stepped over the sliding door track and fell forward. Luckily I fell into a pile of cardboard boxes which cushioned my fall.

That was the easy part. The hard part was that I couldn’t get up! My body was twisted aound. I could reach the sliding door handle, but I don’t have the strength to pull myself up.

I tried various things for about 45 mins but no luck. I could reach my phone in my bag, luckily, and I phoned a mate to see if he could come and give me a hand, but he was too far away.

So there was nothing for it but to call an ambulance. I felt bad about it, but when I explained what had happened, they were very understanding and it arrived about 20 mins later. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get their stretcher past my car and through the narrow back door. Nor could they lift me.

I realised that if I slid myself across the tiled floor into the bathroom, and the ambo guy put my thick bathmats down for me to kneel on, I could twist myself around, get my arms up onto the edge of the bath, brace my legs against the cabinets behind and with a mighty push, I got myself up. Bloody ‘ell, I was shaking with the stress and strain, but I was up. Good thing to remember in case it happens again.

Being paramedics, they wanted to do all their tests, so I had an ecg (perfect), blood sugar (4.9, great), blood pressure (155/75 fine), so all good. They wanted to take me in to Joondalup hospital, but I said no, I was fine, so they got me to sign a waiver of liability and they were on their way. It was an easy one for them.

So that was a fun couple of hours, but this is a bit of a worry. I suppose things are a bit unusual in that I’m feeling unwell, weak and wobbly, so a fall like this is out of the ordinary. But it raises the question of whether I can go on living alone. I am worried, but the thought of having to pack everything up and move out of here is too much to comprehend.

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Add to that, having lost a few kilos of weight (Ozempic), I’m finding that my blood sugars are going low more often, meaning I feel myself getting the shakes. If I let it go too low (<4) I can feel myself getting a bit woozy, hazy, slow thinking. That’s what lack of sugar to the brain feels like. I’m well aware of the danger and can counter it by eating sweet stuff – jellybeans for example. It’s another thing I have to be careful of these days. Plus I’m slowly losing my sense of balance, which makes hanging clothes on the line difficult. Mostly the Silver Chain lady does it, but not always.

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And now for something completely different. I’ve been watching a cooking program on Netflix called Five Star Chef, about a group of about eight (at the start) young trainee chefs at The Langham Hotel in London, a six star, cost-is-no-object type of hotel. It has two Michelin stars and these people are given various assignments – menus, table arrangements, small or large groups etc – and told that they must prepare five star, six star meals for either the three supervisors, or real guests. It’s not uncommon for guests to spend £500 on a dinner.

Holey moley! When money is no object, when no expense is to be spared, when perfection is mandatory, it’s amazing. It’s obscene, actually. To think that there are thousands of homeless people in British cities dependent on soup kitchens, sleeping rough, and these ultra-rich people are spending money as if it were water.

However, the program is fascinating. Slowly, the traines are whittled away and from the original eight, we’re down to three at the moment. There are only six episodes, so the next will be the final. Good stuff.

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Great to see the women’s soccer finals being fought out at the moment, and the way the Matildas won 4-0 against Canada last night. I don’t actually watch the whole matches, but I’m interested in the results.

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I’ve been involved in a thing called the ABC Study, the Australian Breakthrough Cancer Study. I don’t have cancer, but it has affected my family so they are trying to find links and clues. It mainly involves on-line questionnaires so far, but today I’ve had to provide fæcal samples to be sent off to Melbourne.

Ugh! UGH! I won’t go into details, but it took two attempts a week apart. I got it done this time, so I’ve got a padded bag that has to be posted off this afternoon. Thank goodness that’s over.