OMG, I'm ill AGAIN – The Climb #260

Sunday 9^th October 2017

For someone who never gets ill, I seem to be doing a bad job of avoiding bugs in 2017. I woke this morning to find that my throat had swollen up and I’d come down with a bit of a fever. This is like the second time I’ve been ill this year, which I know isn’t much for most people, but I tend to get a cold once every two. I’ve also gone off my food as well, which is probably a good thing as I need to drop some weight as I think it’ll improve my fighting.
I’ve heard the bug has been going round but I ended up spending nearly the entire day in bed. The only real time I got up was to go to Morrisons to get some drink (no, not alcoholic!) as I’d run out and given how much I was sweating… Needless to say, just carrying a couple of bottles back from the shops nearly killed me.
I suspect that various stresses have lowered my super-human immune system to normal levels. I’m suspecting to hear back on the novel at any time, I have some personal things going on I’m a little anxious about, and I’m going to Romania this week and haven’t even found time to organise currency.
Romania is going to be a fun trip. I’m going over there to help instruct at a swordfighting seminar. Whilst I’m the ‘glamorous assistant’ this is the first time I’ve ever taught internationally, and it’s in a country I’d never think to visit otherwise. I’m still not sure what gear to take and so I’m getting a little anxious but it’s going to be a huge amount of fun.
Up until recently, I’ve been feeling a bit under-qualified to instruct, even as an assistant, but given that I’m #57 in the world at rapier & dagger, I now feel validated to instruct.
But I’m not sure what the internet is going to be like whilst out there, and so it’s quite possible that The Climb won’t get published until I get back. I’ll still write them, I just will be unable to post some of them as I may not be able to take my laptop with me, and may not have time to sit down and do some of the associated tasks like the thumbnails and the like.
Laying in bed between fever dreams gave me time to think about a lot of things. In many ways, I do feel like I’ve peaked a bit this year, and that is in no way a bad thing given that the things I set out to do were next to impossible… but I don’t want to feel like I’m going to coast for the rest of the year. I’m going to be switching a few things up, some public, some personal.
Normally these things would wait until the start of a new year and a new “Year of the…” but I’m not even sure what 2018 is going to be.
I feel I’ve got lazier the more things have gone my way, and I don’t want to get comfortable or complacent. Normally it takes me until around February to switch things up a bit but I suspect that I’ll be doing that over the next month instead, and then use the results from the last couple of months of 2017 to help decide the direction of 2018.
Of course, at the moment, I can’t really see much beyond Romania so I don’t have any strong idea of the things I will be switching up… only that stuff will be.
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