Blog 12/2024

Sunday 22nd December 2024


Films of 2024


In 2024 I watched 482(currently) films, by far the most I’ve watched in a single year, here are a list of films I enjoyed the most. They aren’t films that were just released this year but from any time I just happened to watch them this year.

Alienoid 1 + 2
I watch the first Alienoid fairly early in the year and it was amazing, it’s a South Korean scifi with time travelling robots and aliens going back to the Goryeo dynasty, the whole things was fun, action packed and “modern” Back to the Future. The second was released this year and it was more of the same!

Wolfwalkers
Set in Ireland in the 16 hundreds where a hunter is tasked to track down the last pack of wolves in Killkenny, his daughter befriends a strange girl from a tribe that has the ability to change into wolves when they sleep. There is one scene particularly which was in credible when they both turn into wolves and Running With the Wolves by Aurora is playing which is just stunning.

Hanna
Another old one but I watched again this year and it’s just an music album video, the soundtrack to this was always one of my favourites and quite enjoy the film too, I’m sure you probably know it.

Agora
Set in Roman Egypt it’s a story of science vs religion and the rise of Christianity, cantering around philosopher Hypatia and her students. I remember watching this in the cinema way back when and took a very long time to track down the DVD for it at the time, things are a lot easier to source these days thankfully.

Godzilla Minus One
Despite actually watching this last year it was after I wrote the Films of 2023, And so added now. Interesting film in regards to post warm in Japan and… Godzilla. No need to really say more.

LaRoy Texas
A man about to kill himself is mistaken for a hitman and gets hired and the story goes from there, a fun crime thriller which was quite enjoyable.

There’s Something in the Barn
And finally a Christmas one set in Norway where a family inherit a house with a barn, but in the barn is an elf, you treat him well he treats you well, if you don’t…. Fun, gory Christmas film.

That’s my top films of 2024. There are others that I did enjoy and will watch again at some point. I've added that filter to the film list so you can see which ones I enjoyed the most and that’s my way of recommending them.

Thursday 19th December 2024


Kindling


And so, a bit more progress as was hoped, since the last post there was the motivation but now there is the action is starting to take place. Firstly, it started with a few short walks to gradually build things up, pretty much a few hundred meters down the road and back, it's not much but it's a direction and the right one.

I increased the frequency and had no issues so quickly increased the distance, well doubled the distance and to add to the motivation of it I also set up a route on Pokemon Go. An added bonus objective and side quest to do while improving. I then increased the frequency of this route to a few times a day and seem quite able to do it.

I have started to have a few issues with leg and knee pains though, I knew it wouldn’t just be plain sailing and there would be a few things that would crop up. Another is my lungs, due to the inactivity, surgery and repeated infections there is a weakness and a restriction there. I get about half way round the walk and I can notice that it just isn’t right but I’m pretty sure if I keep at it that will improve and I’ll be able to get my breath a lot better.

The knee and leg pain is a bit different, I’m hoping it’s just down to the surgery and things getting working again but I have a sneaky feeling there may be more to it than that. The knee pain I’ve had for years, and it is quite debilitating at times. I hope… it is maybe just a temporary thing until things settle down and everything gets into place as it should.

Anyway, minor potential blip but at least if I time the meds right I’m pretty much able when I need to be which means I can actually plan to do things, which is nice for a change. I had a GP appointment last week and was able to drive to it with no issues and even fill up the tyres as the car hadn’t been used in a few weeks and with the cool weather causing the pressure to go down.

A couple days ago I thought it would be nice to get out for a while for a proper drive, it was a bit of a stinker of a day so was perfect weather for it. I wasn’t out for too long but went on a nice loop out to Killyleagh via Ballygowan and round to Downpatrick, Crossgar, back to Ballygowan and on home after.

It’s the first recreational outing I’ve had for quite some time and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t stop and get out for a walk or anything at any point, but I don’t think I’d be able to manage that at the moment.

Yesterday I had to go out again to the GP as some of the results were off, tbh I don’t think there’s a time when there’s not something that’s off. And got the bloods repeated, but any time they have wanted to do something in the past they’ve always had to confirm any changes with hospital, even though hospital are the ones that are on top of most of these things anyway.

But one more night of the clexane after the surgery and I’ll hopefully start to sleep a little better again still. When I was at my parents my sleep was really bad, I kept having dreams and I think it was whatever way the mattress was and allowing more blood to my brain, I vaguely remember the last time I had dreams there too. Once I got home and into my own bed the dreams stopped and I started the sleep a bit better again.

I’ve been able to push myself bore on the exercise bike than I had been able to before. There was always a limit to what I could do there were movements that were just too painful before. Now I’m able to be more comfortable, my back and chest still play up but the legs are doing much better on it and it seems to help them and the lungs too.

I’m tempted to go out for a drive this afternoon. I always love being up in Portrush at Christmas and I’ve not been able to be up there for quite a while but I don’t know if I’m ready for it or not and if the effort that will be involved will be worth it but if I am to go it will have to be soon enough so I can make the most of the sunlight and get there just as it’s getting dark.

I’ll maybe let a coin decide…

Until next time!!

Monday 9th December 2024


Time Two


I keep starting to write stuff but keep distracting myself as it just seemed and unending repetition of not being able to do things and being sore and tired. Not this time…

I was having a music night, just sitting with the eyes closed listening to music, I do a Random Album Friday from time to time but haven’t recently. Tonight was different it was my Random Soundtrack and RHCP – Otherside came on and reminded me of a time I was in hospital listening to Californication and By The Way. And I done the same, thankfully this time at home.

I knew I wrote a blog about it back then and knew roughly when it was and coincidently it was Tuesday 10th December 2019, or at least that’s when I wrote the blog so it was probably the night before, the 9th. It’s quite sad to think that 5 years ago I knew things were going to get much worse before they were going to get better, despite just being out of surgery on my heart and a chunk of lung chopped out. I didn’t imagine that it would be 5 years before there was any real hope of improving.

One thing after another has finally led here, but maybe there is finally that glimmer of hope that there may be something more than just being. I know things will never go back to how they were before, heading in that direction though can only be a positive thing as the last five or six years have been bad, really, really bad and I have cut myself off from a lot of the world, which in some ways has been a good thing and will continue to have to do that, not so great in others which I may try to fix but I need to fix myself first.

I have that fire, or at least the spark is there to start that fire. I had my second hip surgery a couple of weeks ago and the second I leaned down and felt me touching my leg I was driven, there wasn’t any irritation to the nerve and I knew I was going for it. With the other leg it took months to get to a stage, and even still, where I can do anything to improve it and was just a waiting game for the feeling and sensations to come back again and still is. Only about a month ago I was able to step up a step and was a bit concerned that if the same thing happened to the second leg I’d be screwed and just not able.

This wasn’t the case and shy of three weeks after surgery I am way ahead of any progress I could have imagined by even a couple of months down the line and the lack of pain doing anything is so relieving, I was expecting to be so much worse after for a while for things to get back into place but it must have been so bad that any pain there is now is nothing compared to what it was like before the surgery.

And so because of all this… That spark and I’m going to kindle it into a roaring fire…