12.07.2026 Dizziness without spinning?

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 Sunday 12th 

 Up at 8.10 after a quiet night. Heat pump working and holding it to a comfortable 22C indoors overnight.

 Had breakfast and then a chat online and feeling fine. Talking about going for ride.

Then I suddenly started feeling dizzy as I was reading a news story in text. 

 10.30 Went back to bed for about an hour. Still feeling dizzy. The weird thing is the dizziness is worse with my eyes closed. No visual disturbance or spinning with my eyes open. No morning coffee or a roll. I sat for ages in the computer chair staring out of the window. It seemed to help to avoid looking at closer objects. 

 12.00 Woke feeling wobbly. So I sat outside for a while. I was getting strange effects with my eyes closed. Until my vision went fuzzy when my eyes were open. I felt hot and cold simultaneously. I retreated indoors and sat in an armchair. Constant feeling of mild nauseousness. Kept a bucket handy nearby. I have been sipping tap water to avoid dehydration. 

 13.45 Woke with pins and needles in my arms. Presumably from resting on the wooden arms of the chair. Feeling fuzzy but a bit better. It is 23C in the room after turning off the heat pump. I can use the computer again without causing dizziness. Are the new progressive "screen" glasses responsible?

14.00 I am going to try a cup of tea. Nothing to eat. Now I am struggling to focus on the computer screen again. Trying my 2-year-old screen glasses. Better. The tea did not taste as expected. Yuk! Is it the water?

 No dinner. I had a sub-micro apple juice and a 3nm Corny bar.  Still feeling rough. Chest still clogged. Get very dizzy when I cough. 

 In the meantime I managed to get dual screens working of the Mini-PC. Now I can have the security cameras on the second screen without needing a second PC running. Save the planet. 

 There is talk of thunderstorms overnight. Mostly elsewhere. North and east. It might miss us altogether.

 I dragged a recycling bin along at 20.00. The cat was in the drive but it ran away. 

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11.07.2026 Market.

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  Saturday 11th 57F/14C [6.30]  Full sun again. Peaking at 27C/81F. Light, northerly winds. 22C/71F in the room. 14C/57F in the greenhouse.

 Up at 6am after a quiet night. Though I was awake for an hour 2-3am. Feeling too hot. The neighbours cat was setting off the security lights. It practically lives here day and night. Always hunting. 

 7.50 Back from trenching across the drive. I am a silly Billy. I should have used the big hammer drill with a chisel bit. I was using a heavy mattock. Like a pick but with a wide blade for trenching. Which was very slow going on such heavily compacted gravel. I found a good length of quality [non-kink] hose to use as conduit. For the new camera's POE network cable. Which will cross the drive and then just be lost in the base of the overgrown hedge. The camera only runs on low voltage. So no special safety rules are required. As it certainly would with mains 250C AC. The trench is almost complete.    

 The 12mm garden hose won't work with network cables. The plugs are too big to enter. Grr. That means I have to find an alternative. Flexible installation hose is cheap and readily available. I don't need the highest UV resistance spec for a low voltage cable. This means I have to drive into town. Which I want to do anyway. My new glasses need adjustment and I'd like to buy a cheap garden roller. The optician doesn't open until 10am. I can go there last. 

 Whoops! The 16mm flexible installation hose is only 10mm bore. I have been looking at 20mm garden hose and larger diameter flexible installation hose. The cheapest option is the all too common. Dark green, garden hose but in 20mm. Very prone to flattening and kinking. Manageable for this exercise as it only needs to be laid out once and forgotten. Warm, sunny weather offers ideal conditions.

 12.10 78F/26C. Hot sunshine! Back from town. With a 20mm x 25m garden hose, two draw wires of ten and 20 meters and a baby, garden roller. 

 The town was packed. With the long high street closed for market stalls. I parked in the back yards. While I had my new glasses straightened. Then off to the industrial estate on the edge of town. Where the big shed outlets hang out. Again they were packed. With long queues at the checkouts. The car parks were packed too.

 It was too hot to work outside in direct sunlight. So I spent the afternoon on YouTube. 

 Dinner was a fry-up. Chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes and an egg. 

 

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10.07.2026 Another viewpoint.

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  Friday 10th 58F/14C [07.30] Bright sunshine from a milky sky. There was early mist hanging  over the woods again. Light northerly winds. We are promised full sun and 26C/79F by late afternoon. With a nationwide warning of increased drought. Raised temperatures and no rain forecast for the next 10 days. Highest forecast temperature 28C/82F tomorrow. Summer warmth, rather than a heat wave.

 22C/71F in the room. 15C/59F in the fully open greenhouse. Pond 69F/20.6C. Fish lively. The indoor plants seem to be thriving. Particularly those near the south facing, greenhouse windows. With lots of new leaves. The shade net on the greenhouse must act like dappled shade.

  Up at at 7am after a very quiet night and failed lift-off at 6am. I thought I might not sleep after yesterday's frequent naps due to dizziness. My right ear keeps popping. No hint of dizziness so far. 

 The security camera software is becoming more sensitive to detected movement. With a signal balloon appearing in the corner of the monitoring screen. It is now indicating larger vehicles [buses and container lorries] passing on the road. Which is 200-300m away. With two fields, several overgrown hedges and trees intervening!

 The software is not recording these distant vehicles. Presumably as they represent no risk. I have further adjusted my large [28" & 34" 4K] computer screens. So I can see both at the same distance side by side. With only a slight angle between them. To bring their centers equidistant. For improved eye comfort and hopefully, reduced risk of dizziness. 

 This allows me to easily monitor the robot mower and my surroundings. While simultaneously using the other screen for normal duties. All a far cry from the early 1980s days. Of a Sinclair ZX81 with its rubber keyboard and a tiny, portable, B&W, CRT TV. A plug-in RAM extension block of 16k. A tiny thermal printer using special, silver paper in rolls. The Internet and now familiar mouse still somewhere. Far off in the dazzling, hi-tech future.  

 13.30 24C/75F. I spent the morning connecting and setting up another security camera. It has become very warm to be walking back and forth and endlessly climbing tall stepladders. It was difficult to decide on a pointing angle and installed height for the new camera. Though I am very pleased with the new viewpoint. Which solves several problems of former blind spots. I ought to have some lunch! It will give me an excuse for a rest.

 15.30 77F/25C. Back from the shops. With a 3m tall 10x10cm, pressure treated pole and some groceries.

 16.00  Sweating profusely after lifting the pole upright from the trailer in hot sunshine. Using several stepladders to get high enough to lift from the top. Gravity and leverage can be your friends. At times like these. 

 18.20 75F/24C. I have been digging a trench across the drive for the new camera cable. The drive is so compacted that it is very hard and hot work. Even in the shade. I didn't want overhead cables. It would have been ugly and short lived. I had better have a rest and make some dinner.

 I couldn't be bothered with a full cooked meal. Fried chicken slices on fresh, bread rolls. 

 9.30 I went out and did some more digging. A bit breathless. 

 

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