The Sugar Trolls and the Bopping Elf

The Sugar Trolls are alive and well and living in me. I don’t know if they excrete sugar or mine it somewhere and use me to store it, a walking safe if you will, but I’m full of the damn stuff. So, my big task in this, my first week off work this year, is to try to get it under control. The weather’s been lovely so far this week, lovely and warm with blue sky and sun beating down, shorts and sandals weather. This morning is a bit different though, cooler and white, cloudy sky.

I peaked on Tuesday when my sugar reading was at 15 (whatevers) when it should’ve been at about 6. So I went out for a walk round Tooting Common. It’s a very large area of greenery with lots of different areas, some areas with grass mown short for sport, a colourful lido, a small lake and smaller ponds, children's play area and tennis courts, other areas where everything grows reasonably wild and a couple of ‘nature reserve’ areas. It was nice to see in one of the natural areas that it’s being actively managed, with a small area being ‘dead fenced’ to protect some spring flowers – I couldn’t see any plants that looked out of the ordinary so perhaps they’ve already died back. I did find a nice clump of hawthorne trees, though, all knarled and ancient looking and covered in blossom, both the clean white blossom and the red/pink/purple variety like the old one in my garden. Hawthorne usually has white blossom and I’ve never understood why mine has red, so it was nice to see them blooming side by side on the Common.

Even after walking for nearly one and a half hours, my sugar level was still too high. I don’t understand my body sometimes. So off I went to the gym for the first time in ages. The first thing I did was weigh myself and was relieved to see that I hadn’t put on as much weight as I thought I had – I’ve become bigger rather than heavier, so that’s something. My gym has converted from a Holmes Place to a Virgin Active and this was my first visit since the big change. What big change? It still hasn’t happened. The ground floor has been painted an odd sort of orange and there are some carpet tiles on the ground and first floors, but that seems to be it. A few new exercise machines in one gym and the layout changed in another. Apparently the big change will happen over May. Oh, the other change is a sign in the changing room saying ‘no paparazzi – don’t take photos with camera-phones’ which is rather odd!

Yesterday I had an MRI scan at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to see what the discs and soft-tissues in my lower spine are up to. You've got to remove everything that might accidentally interfere with the machine or fall off and break it so I very gingerly removed by last 'blessing' from around my right wrist, the first time it's been off in almost exactly 7 years (since 22 May 2000 to be precise). I don't think it has long to last with the silk threads worn very thin and getting to 'snap' consistency in one place. I'm not sure I could get it back on without snapping it so I'm still naked-wristed. It feels slightly strange.

The appointment wasn’t until 5.40pm (and there were more after me) and it was rather odd arriving at the hospital as most others were leaving. Strip and into a backless gown (I hate them), lie on the slab and be moved into the polo-mint machine, very claustrophobic and no space to move to be bombarded my magnetic stuff. I don’t remember it being so tight the last time I was done (8 years ago) but then again I was smaller then! I’d also forgotten how loud the machine is, even wearing headphones. 10 minutes later I was pulled out and sent on my merry way home. I’ll get the results when I go back in two weeks time.

Today? Well, I’m sitting here waiting for the nice man to deliver my Maximo Park tickets for next weekend. He’s tried before and failed so I’m sitting here in my bay window watching the drive for strangers carrying paperwork to wander up to the front door (my bell doesn’t work). The gig is next Friday so I’m getting slightly concerned about the tickets. They tried to deliver them to work but I was in another building at the time so missed them. I don’t know why the tickets have to be signed for by special delivery – the face value is only £20 or something so they should just post them but won’t.

Still, sitting here doing nothing much gives me the chance to listen to my new records, the four CD boxset of ‘Marc Bolan & T.Rex: 20th Century Superstar’. It’s got a nice representative selection of his entire recording history from his first demos as Toby Tyler through John’s Children and Tyrannosaurus Rex to the glory that was T.Rex. I haven’t reached the final disc yet which ends with ‘Celebrate Summer’ (with the chorus of ‘Summer is heaven in 77’), his last single before he died.

I’ve never heard the John’s Children tracks before and they’re surprisingly good (one of their singles even made the US Billboard Top 100 back in 1966). Some of the Tyrannosaurus Rex songs are familiar from one of my early vinyl collections from about 1971 and it’s lovely to hear them again whereas others are completely new. One of the joys and annoyances of this boxset is that it includes alternative takes on some of the songs, such as a 5 minute 18 second version of ‘Hot Love’ that’s never been released before – I love it, it’s excellent, but it’s not the version I’ve known for 36 years and if any version is re-mastered and re-issued it should be that one. Still, I can live with that. There’s also a 64 page booklet full of photos of the 20th Century Boy.

Anyway, back to the trolls. I've just taken a reading and my blood sugar is now 11.1. I can only conclude that it's the museli I've been eating for breakfast, even though there's no added sugar or salt and not much fruit. I was 6.0 before breakfast, after which I took my tablets and now I'm 11.1. Something in the museli is making the trolls act up so, bye-bye museli and hello to crunchy-nut cornflakes.