Hot weather and all that.

One of the questions that I get asked a lot is - "Does hot weather affect your arthritis?" Well, having spent most of a week in Portugal I can now conclusively reveal my answer which is - "I really have no idea!"

While it is true that I had a couple of almost pain free days while in Portugal, I also had one of my worst nights followed by a terrible morning. To be honest I hope that it is the Sulfasalazine that is kicking in which is lessening the pain. At least then I have hope that things will be better all year round rather than just for a few weeks of the year.

I seem to have one side effect of taking Sulfasalazine though. I have a sort of metallic taste in my mouth pretty much all of the time. Mints do help so I suppose that it is better that most of the other side effects that I could have had.

One thing that I have found in the past couple of weeks is that there are real benefits to using a stick when flying. Without me asking it has allowed myself and Marian to skip queues in both security and passport control. I was also invited to board the plan before the rest of the passengers.

Now that I am back in Scotland the pain is controllable by taking a couple of painkillers which deadens the symptoms for several hours. It doesn't seem to work so well on my fingers though - especially the index finger on my left hand which is rarely able to be bent without some pain. 

Yesterday I tried a day with no painkillers and it was an OK day. Didn't have the greatest night though so back on them today.

It will come as no great surprise to anyone that I was in Portugal for a music festival. I love these Costa Festivals as it is brilliant to meet up with friends that we don't see as often as we would like. It was a wonderful festival with artists as diverse as Midge Ure and O'Hooley and Tidow. A couple of my favourites were an amazing second set from Fairport Convention which I reckon was as good as I have seen them and Anthony John Clarke and Julia Porter's set - especially "I Wasn't Born a Refugee" which is an amazing song.

One of my high spots was performing My Back Ages (my parody of Dylan's My Back Pages) at an open mike session with the wonderful David Stainthorp on eight string ukulele. People have been fairly complimentary about my performance which you can see on my Facebook page and has apparently had 795 plays so far! My favourite compliment is from my grandson who said, "My like it Granda." Who knows, I might even try to do something similar again.

I love live music and tomorrow Marian and I are heading to Irvine to see the aforementioned Anthony John Clarke and Julia Porter. We are really looking forward to seeing them again. Please try to keep music live by going to gigs and buying the merch. Also, if you can, book in advance as it is handy for the performers and promoters to have an idea of how many will be there.

Our National Health Service could be improved but it is better than the health care that many other countries have. Please do what you can to support it.

As usual I really would appreciate it if you could all share this as less people read the last post than any of the previous ones. Also please leave comments - I really enjoy reading them.

Take care of yourselves and others.

Cheers

Rob