Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

If only there was a magic something which you could take or do to lock the black dog in its kennel. Different people suffer (and contain it) in different ways. My Dad had problems because of war time memories.. 

 

In other news.. not a lot really. I did another 2 hour cricket related phone call yesterday, followed by a one which lasted 1 hour.. but then.. a couple of hours in my indoor shed aka the muddle railway room set me up for a very calming evening.

 

Today involves writing a very short report to be followed by dropping off a 7mm to the foot model of one of the Hunslet Engine Companies best for display at Larkrail this weekend.

 

Tomorrow may be a wash out.. forecast includes plagues of frogs, lots of thunder and lightning etc which would be fine by me.

 

Time to try some Breakfast Sausages from Great Heck as supplied by youngest Herbert from the Great Yorkshire Show... Dr Eldest Herbert is visiting the Isle of Wight at the moment.. photos of full size steam driven objects have been received.

 

Have as good a day as you can!

 

Baz

Edited July 14, 2023 by Barry O

[roundhouse]

Good morning from deepest Wales.

 

Had a good wander around the pubs in Barmouth and photographing the bridge. The new steel spans are taking shape near to the Southern end of the bridge.

 

If all goes well we will be on the Ffestiniogg railway this morning then meet up with our Cumbrian friends enroute / in Manchester where we will top up our alcohol levels.

 

Really glad that we decided not to travel around mainland Europe due to the heat. This changeable and currently cool wet weather is much more our preference.

Edited July 14, 2023 by roundhouse

[jjb1970]

I had my first ride in one of the new NSEWL MRT trains last night, it's basically an updated version of the older trains from a passenger perspective. The Land Transport Authority seems to apply a 'if it isn't broke, don't fix it' philosophy as every MRT train since the original basically follows the same template. Longitudinal plastic bench seating, walk through design and a lot of standing capacity. Nothing luxurious but it moves huge numbers of people around with no fuss and is cheap. Something nice to see was a bunch of kids going crazy with excitement, local train enthusiasts. It's funny, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, where there are trains there are train enthusiasts.

 

Returning to the news, my Google home page on my smartphone had an excited clickbait headline about 120 countries may refuse entry to British people with red passports. I know I shouldn't have given it was classic UK newspaper clickbait but still having a red passport I opened the link just to check whether I had missed something. No, the story was that many countries require 6 months validity on passports to be allowed entry, i.e. they're repackaging a requirement that applies to all passports and has done since as long as I can remember as another bit of fear/outrage fodder. Then they wonder why they're a joke (note, I would not complain about a sensible article reminding people of this, it is the clickbait outrage fodder I hate).

Edited July 14, 2023 by jjb1970

[polybear]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

The Royal Yacht Squadron based in Cowes castle (built 1539)  applied for permission to change the 1920s to  1950s critall windows with double glazed... Permission refused, you can't change original features in a listed building. I don't know the eventual solution but do know they had huge problems with the planners.

 

 

The crazy thing is the Planners will fight tooth & nail to retain a feature that may adversely affect the structure of a historic building (I'm not referring to the Crittall Windows here) in preference to something far more likely to preserve it.

 

38 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Returning to the news, my Google home page on my smartphone had an excited clickbait headline about 120 countries may refuse entry to British people with red passports. I know I shouldn't have given it was classic UK newspaper clickbait but still having a red passport I opened the link just to check whether I had missed something. No, the story was that many countries require 6 months validity on passports to be allowed entry, i.e. they're repackaging a requirement that applies to all passports and has done since as long as I can remember as another bit of fear/outrage fodder. Then they wonder why they're a joke (note, I would not complain about a sensible article reminding people of this, it is the clickbait outrage fodder I hate).

 

Bear once saw a Guy arrive in Kuwait, only to be bounced entry because of this very reason - so he was stuck airside.  Fortunately after a few phone calls to "contacts" they let him in, but I suspect lesser mortals may have had problems.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Well, it’s not raining, but it’s not sunny either! Hang on a minute, it’s just starting to rain, no it’s not, yes it has, ooh hang on it’s stopped again. I get the feeling it’s going to be one of those days today. My first task of the day was going to be a walk to the butchers, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea! So, I might call at the Trafford Centre first and then take a detour to the butchers on my way home, that way I won’t get wet. 
 

Back later.
 

Brian

[Winslow Boy]

My thanks to you all. It's good to know that if times turn desperate there are at least some good people out there. Having an mental illness does make you look at your friends and family with fresh eyes. As they say about any serious illness. I have never hid mine as I chose to be honest about it. It has produced some, what can only be described as revealing reactions. I always remember a lady who came up to me after I'd told a group of people saying how brave I was and I thought what a pity she hadn't said that in front of the group. But I suppose that sums up people's attitude- shush we don't admit  to that. Admittedly this was before the Royals went public with theres but there are still a lot of people out there who see it as a weakness. Unfortunately there are a lot of, what I would term lazy people who are only to happy to carry on with that attitude. There are though some people who use it to there advantage. Being charitable I like to think they don't see the suffering they cause. However there are some. Well let's not go there shall we.

Anyway the washing is on so fingers crossed that the seaweed wranglers have got it wrong and that it's not going to be drench this pm as having a house full of wet washing is not something I desire.

 

Take care ever one and if you can say hello to someone, not because it's the easy thing to do, but because it's a good thing to do. You never know you just might cheer someone up and that's good.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Winslow Boy

[iL Dottore]

I'm sorry to hear about your woes, WB. Depression is definitely a very difficult beast to treat.

 

I haven't worked in that area since about 1992, so my knowledge is rather antique - but at the time CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) was of great interest, with successful interventions involving a combination of psychoactive drugs and CBT (which - if I recall correctly - is quite time intensive for the therapist). Simply put in a nutshell, CBT (again as I recall) is a way of retraining you about how you process your thoughts - addressing cognitive distortions (such as overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing positives and so on). In a way you are training yourself to see the glass as half-full as opposed to half-empty.

 

One self-help stratagem that has been shown to work is regular exercise - which has a marked and persistent antidepressant effect in people. I am fortunate in that I have never been affected by depression, but I can attest that when I come back from the Gym I certainly feel much less grumpy and more energetic...

 

As for such conditions being "weaknesses" - what utter rot. I would venture that doing your best to manage depression or other debilitating disease requires a damn sight more inner strength than any of these armchair pundits could ever manage.

 

(well, technically, ALL humans are "weak" inasmuch as apart from the opposable thumbs and big brain, we are pretty crap at everything else when compared with animals. There was an interesting TV programme where a scientist took [virtually] the best respiratory system in the animal kingdom, the best olfactory system in the animal kingdom etc. and upgraded a human using the best the animal kingdom can offer - the result was very bizarre)

[Dave Hunt]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 I vaguely remember an episode of Grand Designs where the planning department refused to allow the new owners of a historic building to replace the old wooden sash windows with modern high-tech triple glazed windows that looked absolutely identical to the wooden windows that they would have replaced. 

 

Something similar happened to a neighbour when we lived in Lincolnshire. He was refurbishing a grade 2 listed house and when it came to replacing the windows, English Heritage said the glass had to be the same thickness as the originals whereas the building regulations people said it had to be thicker and neither would budge. It took nearly a year before he could get the heritage lot to see sense and get on with the work. One of his less vitriolic descriptions of them was To**ers.

 

Dave

[tigerburnie]

Morning all, been missing in action, so not caught up yet, this post carries an advisory for the squeamish, but I felt the information might be useful for all.

On Sunday ! collapsed and ended up in a dash in an ambulance to hospital, having been ejecting blood from both ends, I'm now on the mend, so no worries. What I thought I'd share were the symptoms leading up to the rather traumatic conclusion, just in case you or a loved one goes through it.
I have polyps which caused my bleed, but it seems an internal bleed is not un common, no-one however gave me a list of clues if all was not well.
An unusual loss of appetite was my first symptom, then severe lethargy then a collapse, so don't wander about like I did, if you feel crook, lie down or your body will do it for you.in an uncontrolled manner. Don't want to worry folk, but listen to your body when it's talking to you, don't carry on regardless.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. It looks as if today is a day for staying indoors, and so will the washing, hopefully it will be dry by Sunday. I am fortunate that I have never had any sort of mental breakdown but I've witnessed someone having a full blown episode, not something I want to see again. Fortunately social services were in the same building as was the social worker assigned to the gentleman concerned. A quick phone call to the social worker and she came and led him away.

[grandadbob]

Much sympathy from here TB.   Since 1996 I've had 3 heavy PR bleeds, (but not the other end) the first of which was bad enough to require a transfusion.  Diverticulitis and bleeding polyps etc.  Glad to say that I've not had a problem for quite a few years now.  Long may it last.

Edited July 14, 2023 by grandadbob

[tigerburnie]

11 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

So not good at the moment I'm afraid. As fellow contributors will recall the  reason I had to stop working was because fourteen years ago I suffered a nervous break down. Fortunately  thanks to counselling and some 'sweeties' from some of Herr Doktaree's colleagues- thank you very much, I'm better than I was. 

However depression never goes away, as several fellow contributors, will be happy to testify to, you just get better at identifying its approach. There are days when I'm lucky to get out of bed. Fortunately they are much less, but then one slips past and last Friday was one such day. Luckily I'm not the same person as I was all those years ago, otherwise some very pointed questions would be being asked. I shall say no more as it sends me down a rabbit hole I don't want to go.

 

Anyway that's enough about my troubles.

 

Nice to hear from our overseas (Singapore) correspondent and that he's making progress with getting the powers that be to move forward instead of sticking there heads in sand. Even if it's small steps it's still steps forward.

 

TAke care everyone.

 

Hope all goes well, my brush with depression was short if not sweet, but remember it's good to talk, this disparate bunch on here have a vast repertoire of advice.

[tigerburnie]

4 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Much sympathy from here TB.   Since 1996 I've had 3 heavy PR bleeds, (but not the other end) the first of which was bad enough to require a transfusion.  Diverticulitis and bleeding polyps etc.  Glad to say that I've not had a problem for quite a few years now.  Long may it last.

A couple of endoscopies, some quarterisation and sample removal and an iron infusion seem to have been the sticking plaster, they haven't done with me, but hospital is not the place to recover, it's for treatment.

[grandadbob]

Just had an entertaining few minutes looking out of the window.  Mate over the road has his house up for sale and somebody turned up for a viewing in a large BMW SUV and spent about 10 minutes trying to park.  There is plenty of room in the road but no, she (tiny Asian lady who could barely see over steering wheel)) decided to try and back onto their property-several times. When that didn't work she tried doing a three/seven point turn in the road up on pavements and ended up almost on my frontage,  too bloody close to my car and I was about to go hurtling out of the door.  Got out of that and then drove straight onto their drive and parked.   I stayed keeping a (nervous) eye out for when they left and she nearly hit another neighbour's car in road when reversing out.

I really, really hope they don't put in an offer for the house.  

Edited July 14, 2023 by grandadbob

[PupCam]

Morning All!

 

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

....

 

If the government, any government really, was truly serious about improving the quality of environment whilst building houses to meet the increasing population’s needs, then they would pass a law mandating that all new construction must be built on brownfield sites.

 

...

 

Unfortunately they seem to prefer greenfield sites.      They are actively "protecting the green belt"  round here .............. by building on it.      

 

A cynical person might say that they prefer greenfield sites because they are cheaper to prepare and thus assist in minimising their effort whilst maximising their profits.    The fact that the density of new builds is typically ridiculous and as for the size of access roads and parking capacity it seems they are still using the 1923 Austin 7 Ruby as the template for the typical family car whilst we all know that the typical family car is now more akin to a Challenger 2.    Yep, rant!

 

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

........

 

Take care ever one and if you can say hello to someone, not because it's the easy thing to do, but because it's a good thing to do. You never know you just might cheer someone up and that's good.

 

We always say hi, hello, good morning to strangers as appropriate when out walking.  I guess living in a quiet village makes that far more practical than if we lived in a busy town or city,   Try saying hello to everyone on Oxford Street might attract the wrong sort of attention or response!      Most people respond but occasional someone doesn't.   I used to operate a "3 strikes and you're out" policy on such greetings if no response was forth coming but now I just go with it and if there's a response there's a response and if not, well, you've done your best and it costs nothing and it just might make a difference.

 

6 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I'm sorry to hear about your woes, WB. Depression is definitely a very difficult beast to treat.

 

I haven't worked in that area since about 1992, so my knowledge is rather antique - but at the time CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) was of great interest, with successful interventions involving a combination of psychoactive drugs and CBT (which - if I recall correctly - is quite time intensive for the therapist). Simply put in a nutshell, CBT (again as I recall) is a way of retraining you about how you process your thoughts - addressing cognitive distortions (such as overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing positives and so on). In a way you are training yourself to see the glass as half-full as opposed to half-empty.

 

A very, very close family member used to struggle (with an undiagnosed at the time condition) and when the situation was finally admitted and recognised they had CBT and I have to say it did an absolutely fantastic job.  Initially there was a bit of difficulty in developing the necessary relationship with the therapist but that was nothing to do with the therapist it was just part of the problem.   As Flavio said; it provides the person with the "tools" to recognise, cope with and circumvent situations.   In the case I'm referring to it initially appeared to replace one behaviour with another (a bit like me sorting out the shed; picking something up and putting it down elsewhere without actually dealing with it properly!) but little by little as the individual got more adept at recognising and modifying their  behaviour it helped no end.      It doesn't  cure the condition (no doubt some genetic and some past experience stuff both contribute in this case) that's just an unchangeable fact of life, but it allows the individual to control the condition rather than the other way round and is most heartily recommanded.

 

In Other News

 

Work progresses on the new version of the code for the DCC Hand Controller.   For those that know of such things I'm re-designing it in an Object Orientated manner, something I never really got involved in when I was developing code professionally all those years ago at the GE.      Looking through the code for the Mark 1 I'd forgotten just how complicated it had become as it includes digital models of both the 08 loco's air brake and train's vacuum brake system, the fuel system, the loco's generator plus a load of other factors determined by the particular way the DCC decoder unit has been configured.       For those of you old enough to remember the text based adventure game beloved by DEC PDP11 and Commodore PET users in the 80s  "I'm in a maze of twisty passages all alike".   The whole project is of course grossly OTT and far from necessary to make a model of a tin box move on parallel strips of metal but it's a most interesting diversion and more than likely the closest I'll ever come to driving a real 08!    

 

I've been told that "someone" requires to visit a large garden emporium in the place they call Milton Keynes.       More luck required then, particularly for the credit card! 🤣

 

TTFN

[BSW01]

I back. I decided to walk to the butchers this morning and I was rewarded by both procuring a pork pie for my dinner and also not getting wet, result. 
 

I'm also someone who has had the occasional tussle with the black dog. The worst episode was in late 2015 and early 2016 and I ended up taking 6 months of work. My boss was absolutely brilliant as was the company, both were very supportive. Once I was fit enough to go back to work, I returned on reduced hours, which gradually increased over a 3 month period. Once back on full hours, I had a chat with my boss and discussed early retirement, he fully supported this and in July 2017 I hung up my test leads for good. Apart from missing the banter of my former work mates, I’ve never regretted. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by BSW01

[Sidecar Racer]

 A new hobby for polybear maybe .     😂

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-66197675

[Winslow Boy]

Thanks one and all. I was offered CBD but as there was something like a two year waiting list I had to decline. I could have gone private, but I was having to watch the pennies by this time as my employer had decided it was cheaper to 'redeploy' me. Which given the fact that this was the second incident and they hadn't covered themselves in glory the first time, I wasn't in the mood to challenge. I was told that I had a good chance of winning given there previous history, but I decided I'd preferred to keep my 'health' rather than have another episode. The counselling I did received helped me greatly and I would certainly recommend it.

 

As pupcam@ has already said it's a case of teaching an 'old dog' new tricks. Unfortunately not all the tricks stay, the sellotape is getting a bit frayed with age, and that's when I get relapses. Sometimes they last a day others much longer.

 

Onwards and upwards as they say. 

I do hope that the garden centre in MK is not the one I used to go to. Can't remember it's name. I do recall though that it ended up more interested in selling you anything but gardening stuff. The decline started after they were taken over by Tesco's of all people.

 

Anyway of to get the washing out of the spinning/washing thingy - don't tell me I'll get it in the end. That's one of the side effects of depression - your memory goes. What was I saying....

[southern42]

' afternoon all from red dragon land.

Wet but not raining first thing. Sun in and out since.

 

Sympathy from me, to @Winslow Boy @tigerburnie and all.

 

As cheerful as I may seem, at times, I am a '"lady" driver' and, as a consequence, plagued by constant Upson-Downs but, thankfully, only a few of the downs have been unbearable. On the other hand, after suffering a short illness, instead of getting over it as the Drs said, within a few months all my energy drained away leaving me in Much Downland. Another few months and I went to the GP - "(Well,) if you could have spent a couple of months in the Bahamas without the family".... "Yeah, most helpful," I thought. And that was it. After awhile, I found myself standing on a mental cliff edge: do I take the jump into oblivion and go into some sort of care or do I stay and carry on? The former was way too scary and I walked away from it but the latter was scary, too. 

 

After a year, I had it all worked out so that I could "manage" it (rather than just cope)... one by one, I stopped doing anything that was not necessary or frivolous, and gradually adopted more of a hermit way of life just being a wife, a mum and a daughter living one day at a time.

 

Another three years and I started on an Employment Scheme, followed by a Further Education course doing art and design. Tough at first, but I found I had started to relax while there.  Within a few weeks of completion, I walked out of the building and noticed the sun shining! The fish bowl that I had been living in had burst. I could not only see but I could engage and respond but still a long process ahead.

 

Older (and wiser?), Upson-Downs are still very much part of my life but I do tend to try and drag myself up, and find ways to stay there. Toot on the flute as an example, yes, I marvel at what I have achieved over the last 18 months, gobsmacked, ecstatic, even, but there are many, many days when I really despair and think I am being unrealistic...but I plod on... Mad, or what? 🤣 But, hey, I enjoy it. Don't I?  And similar stories lie behind muddling and the building of boards for things that run on parallel bits of metal. Choose the "wrong" day and I am always plagued with my own thoughts: It isn't good enough / Not quite right / It's rubbish / Etc, etc, self belief disappearing like a ton of sleepers.  Just enough to tip the Upson-Downs balance - one way or the other! 🤣

 

Gorra get me a mugadecaf.

Take care. Be good. "Don't worry. Be happy."

Polly

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon, rainin innit.  

 

@Winslow Boy Ah, the Mhoddey Dhoo - aka the Black Dog.  Yup, been there too, in my case caused by, and not dealt with at all well, by the NHS!  Self help involved leaving the NHS.....and moving here, where despite the truths filmed by Charles Guard, is a better place in general to live than the UK.  Not without it's issues though...like planning.....but low crime and good opportunities feature large.  So yes, we understand and are here listening.

 

I recognise :

3 hours ago, PupCam said:

a bit like me sorting out the shed; picking something up and putting it down elsewhere without actually dealing with it properly!

 

...as an issue I still struggle with sometimes, especially in winter. Look at things, achieve nothing. I have an imposed rule now, when down the garage be it a bike thing or a mudelling thing, to put at least one thing back on/glued on/painted/cleaned etc before I leave the building.  Anything, but something positive.  It helps.

[PupCam]

36 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

...as an issue I still struggle with sometimes, especially in winter. Look at things, achieve nothing. I have an imposed rule now, when down the garage be it a bike thing or a mudelling thing, to put at least one thing back on/glued on/painted/cleaned etc before I leave the building.  Anything, but something positive.  It helps.

 

That's a very good principle indeed Neil.    

 

As an unimportant example,  I found my Triplane build kept stalling (no pun intended) and every time I went back to it I spent more time prevaricating on what to do next / how top do something etc with the result the situation quickly got worse and harder to extricate myself from.   When I applied the practice, as suggested many moons ago to me by somebody on a model flying forum, it helped enormously to over-come the hurdle of actually "doing something" which becomes harder and harder with the simple passage of time.   When I made a conscientious effort to do something each day, however trivial, progress was much easier and more consistent.    Tasks were often as trivial as marking out one of the many sheet metal brackets, fitting a couple of capping strips to the fuselage side cheeks so that when bigger tasks loomed there wasn't the mental block and the ICBA moment.     Unfortunately, I slipped out of the habit in 2016 and nothing has been done on it since.    The mountain to climb to re-start the build is now just short of Mount Everest which is a shame because it's not that far from being a complete aeroplane and an awful lot of effort and not inconsiderable expense has been lavished on it previously .  

 

 

 

Oh well, perhaps one day ......

 

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by PupCam
Better photograph

[Ian Abel]

13 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Can't be worse than Ticketmaster.

Sadly it WAS Ticketmaster #$!@$@$@$!%$ 😡

[Ian Abel]

POETS, and that's happening.

 

Yesterday, nothing in the way of news or other excitement I'm afraid. Just another day.

 

Weekend hasn't much in store, and potentially LESS than would be possible, since we're scheduled for the ENTIRE WEEKEND to be unhealthy air quality, thanks to our northern neighbor's forest fires. 

Even so, we're planning to go to the Grand Opening of the second location of our friends' sons restaurant. Good food and who can pass up a 50% off opening special!!

Returning here after that for a family get together - I'm informed 🙂

 

Had a few thunderstorms overnight and picked up 3/4 inch of rain. Good we got "something" but really doesn't make much of a dent in the drought conditions.

Today, 17c and sunny first thing, expect 30c for the high with the AQI rising faster than the temperature looks like - ugh!!

Will be a batten down the hatches and crank the a/c probably.

 

Later.

[grandadbob]

A'noon,

Tipping it down here and has been on and off all day.  At least this meant no watering duties today but I did amble down the road between showers to check if any post etc needed removing from inside the porch.  Now relieved from duty as they return home tomorrow morning.

Another couple  of hours spent in The Shed but stopped early as just after I'd returned there after lunch Nicki and Joe turned up for a visit and bearing cake!  It was in fact bread pudding that Nicki's fiancé Darren had made and notwithstanding my diet I just had to sample it.  Absolutely delicious but I only had a very small piece so there is more to sample over the next couple of days.

As usual watched the final few kms of today's stage of the T de F and  just watching it made me feel tired!

Not sure what this evening will bring but nothing I want to see on TV so may watch a recorded film...or two. Of course this will be after Herself has had her daily soap dose.

 

   

Edited July 14, 2023 by grandadbob

[DaveF]

Quite a fruitful day for once.  I did a few house jobs and then sorted through the bed linen and had a good throwing out session, including the duvet covers I'd been using and have got out new covers, sheets and so on and washed them before their first use - and they have dried so I can go to bed tonight!  After that I went into town and bought some spare sheets and pillow cases in case of need, I found some at a very good price in a sale.  Next I went to the Quayside and looked at a ship unloading alumina before going to park at the beach for a walk on the prom.

 

It was just coffee time when I got home, while drinking it I marked up the Radio Times with the programmes I may want to watch/listen to during the week.

 

After that I started sorting out the costume jewellery which was a lot easier than I had expected.  There was no real gold or silver, nor any pearls - that has all been dealt with already.  A few necklaces had broken, they went in the bin as they were not worth rethreading, the rest just got sorted and got put into small boxes/bags.  I ended up with everything neatly packaged to go the charity shop.   The only thing I didn't find was Mum's beading things (she used to make a bit of jewellery as well as everything else) it must be in another box.  If it does turn up some of the bits and pieces may be useful for model stuff.

 

Next I cooked  a simple lunch - smoked gammon and chips, after that I went to the charity shop and gave them the jewellery with an explanation of what is in each package.  Some charity shops do not like earrings, especially ones for pierecd ears but I notice this charity has some on its web site, there were some on display in the shop too.  On the way back to the car I called at the locksmiths which also does a good range of hardware to buy a few small brass screws.

 

Since then I've dead headed and weeded yet again and watered the greenhouse plants, the rest will have rain this evening for a change.  As I write it is just beginning to spot with rain.

 

This evening will be the prom concert and a book, I saw the last part of today's stage of the Tour de France while I drank some tea.

 

Footnote - the painful neck etc is still there, I can sit and stand without it hurting if I am careful, but using a computer is very uncomfortable - becuase of the movements in typing, scrolling and so on.

 

David