As I mentioned in my last entry, I went to Bradgate Park on Saturday. Well, I decided that wasn't such a great thing. I woke up on Sunday feeling really ill, spent Sunday feeling grotty. Then Monday morning I found a tic!!! Yes, bloodsucking animal was on the back of my arm. I must have got it in the park, I didn't feel it or anything, even in the bath, I mean, when I washed I felt this lump, but I thought it was a spot, I can't really see the back of my arm without contortion efforts. Anyway, Monday this "spot" was annoying me so I did the contortion thing and there was this thing with its head in my arm. I may have panicked just slightly. I sat there knowing that you're supposed to burn them or something and that what you definitely shouldn't ever do is pull it off. So anyway, I pulled it out, only of course what I actually did was pulled its body off and left its head in my arm, so then I had to kind of dig it out with nail scissors, which was hard, 'cos of aforementioned contortions, though it didn't really hurt, which leads me to believe that they must aneasthetise you or something so that you don't notice them, though I guess the back of your arm probably isn't all that sensitive anyway. Thing is I then panicked more about the fact that I'd been ill on Sunday, since I'd felt fine on Saturday and I worried that I might have caught some kind of disease. So my fear of having the plague overcame my fear of doctors and I checked with my doctor, who I'd never seen before and who commented on the fact that I don't seem to have gone to a doctor for a while (so, I don't go to a doctor for a few years, that can't be that odd surely? At least I'm registered with one now, I wasn't for over a year, I only registered the other month) she said that you can get diseases (she didn't say what, but I was peering at the screen and it seemed to be lyme disease), but it seems that it takes longer than 24 hours for the symptoms to show, so I was probably just coming down with a virus, in fact it can take weeks or months, so if I get flu-like symptoms I should go back, yeah, right, if I get flu-like symptoms I'll presume I have a cold as usual, don't go to the doctor for that. Anyway, that saga is all over now, no more scary tic burrowing into my arm. I managed to make most of my friends very itchy, but my friend Andy wasn't bothered in the slightest, he'd had them before, I've never heard of a person getting a tic before, only a dog and we didn't like it when my friend's dog had one.

I think the worst thing is that I wasn't wearing short sleeves or anything, my arm was covered at all times, so the tic must have gone up my sleeve somehow, I guess I'll have to start wearing things with tight cuffs if I go into parks again. The only advice I'd heard against tics before though was to wear long sleeves and trousers and avoid long grass and we did that, so what else can you do? I guess we did go off the track and walk in bracken, but it was flattened on the ground bracken, I still can't picture a time that a tic would have gone in my sleeve, I guess it must have been when we were sitting on a rock. Still think it's weird that I was completely well on Saturday, encountered a tic, was really ill Sunday and still feeling ill Monday morning, but once removed the tic felt steadily better and better, guess it was just coincidence, can't be psychosomatic 'cos I didn't know I had the tic when I started feeling ill.

Right, this next bit could get slightly confusing here, I'm quoting from one blog which is quoting from another which links to another. Right, okay, so on Mark's Blog he said:

Read the following on Helen’s blog:

Like James am contemplating chances of receiving anything on Feb 14th. Chances are not good.

Grandparents think Mark will send me something. They called him my "young man". Heh...

I’m inclined to wonder what the “Heh” was for. It could be hard to tell. I accused Helen of sounding sarcastic in chat on Saturday night and she’d only said two words. Maybe I think she’s more sarcastic than she really is. But what of the “Heh”? Hmm….

So anyway, what did I have to add to this whole little blog conversation? Well, not much really, I just thought it'd be interesting to have a long complicated conversation meandering across blogs. Though I am interested in how Mark was interpreting the heh. I think this lack of clarity in meaning is one of the problems of purely text based communication (Where text means words, I would expect most people to be intelligent enough to realise that, but I discovered recently that I was overestimating human intelligence when I used the word text to someone and they couldn't see past their mobile phone, yes I know it's associated with that now, but surely you know the word can be used in other contexts, sorry, ending rant now). I guess this unsurity could also be seen as an advantage of the text-based medium of communication, makes life more interesting as everyone tries to work out what everyone else meant without being able to tell from their tone of voice or facial expression.

So, what did Mark conclude that the heh meant? I couldn't really tell from his comment. He seemed to imply that he thought it was sarcastic, though I'm not really sure how heh could be sarcastic. Did he think it was a dig at him? I don't know, maybe he didn't but will now 'cos I've said that. I probably should avoid commenting further or I'll just end up confusing matters further.

Oh, an update on the comparisons between The Last Starfighter and Back to the Future, Helen said I should have mentioned Billy's Time Bike, so yes, of course Billy's Time Bike was also similar to BTTF, but had a bike. When will we learn the lesson of the potato?