Monday was a strange day. I was up before 0500 and worked through the morning performing the final assembly of the TAQ submission and the duplicate copy for the opposing lawyers. This work occupied me until around 1000 when I left for the post office.

You may ask “How come it takes five hours to stuff each of two envelopes with 11 exhibits each?” Good question. I put my remarkable speed down to the need to double and triple check everything I do in order to avoid inadvertent error. I did discover a number of errors in the main summary document. That was held back and should be corrected and submitted within a week.

Once the two document packages were ready, it was off to the post office via the Start Line route. It was bitterly cold, almost as cold as Sunday, one of the coldest days of the winter. The snow is mostly gone from the sun-exposed pathways but, in the forest, there lies a snaking line of blue-grey ice. This ice track represents all the snow compacted underfoot and cemented in place by the winter rains. For the bulk of the winter the forest tracks provided the best footing, while the machine groomed streets and sidewalks were areas of hazard. Now the situation is reversed.

I experienced a headache almost immediately upon waking. After returning home the headache was still present. Worried over this fact, I decided to hike across the river and buy a pair of socks. Over the past five years the contents of my sock drawer have grown more and more threadbare.

After the sock purchase, and a lot of inexpensive rubbernecking of everything else, I headed over to the grocery store as I was under the pleasant illusion they had inexpensive broccoli for sale. Turned out I was wrong. Did buy carrots which are a full dollar less on the other side of the river. Then I headed for home. The day’s mileage was 11.45. I had a knee ache on the right side and felt exhausted.

The last strange day event occurred when I went to bed. I felt cold despite wearing fleece tops and bottoms plus my green fleece over that ensemble. The bed was covered with warm flannel sheets plus three wool blankets. Despite all of this thermal protection I remained cold and had intermittent bouts of shivering. Very strange. The headache also persisted.

Finally fell to sleep. Just woke up. The headache appears to have gone. I don’t want to invite it back.