"This is the Room"

Believe me, it's in there. The room where it all started! The Royal Free Hospital today, Hampstead, London.



Kid fingered dolls line the wall,
Small soft footsteps heard out in the hall,
Tell me something Mother of mine,
Will I see the end, will I be fine?
Dirty old men sniffing out girls,
Black & white dogs shitting themselves,
White coated men man handling the boys,
Handing them tissues, handing them toys,
Socks hanging off the ends of my feet,
Feeling sick way down, pain comes to meet,
Blood up the walls, sick on the floor,
Tears in my eyes, gap in the door,
Remote control, You & me,
Who is to blame, My fault maybe?
The light is my friend until it goes out,
Then darkness, I call, I want, so I shout,
This is the room, the start of it all,
The beginning, the end, the long hard fall,
Bags of sweets for the holes in me,
Come play with the needles, come play on my knee,
I've been lost ever since I left that room,
I'm still here, but the room is a tomb,
It's no longer there now, a place no more,
It's just a room, four walls and a door,
Still you can hear the line outside,
Of young boys & girls who have already died,
I'm left with nothing, empty & hollow,
I'm still in that line just waiting to follow.



Jason






(C) JPT 2008.........490.84 miles.

"The Same Deep Water as I"

Kingston Riverside today.



"Just how deep does a swimming pool need to be? How deep and how large?"

The one presented before me was enormous! I had know idea why I was here and I had know idea how I got here! But I was here, and here to stay!

I found myself by the pools edge at one end. The pool stretched out before me for what must have been a thousand feet in length, five hundred feet wide and one hundred feet deep! The whole thing was covered by a huge hanger and any sound that I heard was greatly magnified due to the size of the vast empty space that I found myself in. To the left hand side of the pool and near to the end that I was at, I could see through the light ripples, submerged on the pools bottom a Boeing 747 aircraft. It looked positively tiny as it lie dead, crushed under a billion tonnes of water! It was intact and looked just as if it were waiting on the runway of an airport. I thought maybe that it was there for deep sea rescuers to practice rescuing people from aircraft that crash into the sea. It looked very odd nonetheless.
On closer inspection of the pools bottom, I could make out tiny little figures walking around in diving suits. They looked busy and moved with purpose. The more that I looked, the more people I saw. Their suits were of the canvas type with large metal helmets shaped like spheres with small circles of ultra thick glass with which to see through and to protect the wearer from the great pressures of such deep water.
As I looked down into the depths of the pool, I noticed that my feet were covered with these giant metal boots. The soles of which were made up from three or so inches of solid lead! I felt very heavy and realized that I too was dressed in the same way as the people I could see under the waters surface. The glass covered hole cut into the front of my helmet made sure that I could see forward. I looked to my left and saw another glass hole and to my right another. Through the small round window on my right side I saw a man standing right by me. He said that he was the owner of the pool. He looked me up and down and told me that I looked just like a proper diver. He smiled when he said this and then looked into the water and said for me to get in.

After telling him that I had never been diving before, I found myself climbing down onto the pools ledge and lowered my legs into the icy looking water and found myself thinking how long it would take for me to reach the bottom. There were no steps nor any kind of hoist to lower me in! Surprisingly, as I let myself go, I sank quite slowly as I approached the pools bottom. The sides of the pool were made up from thousands and thousands of square, once brilliant white tiles, now slightly yellowing with grouting that was stained a light brown. I let my thickly gloved fingertips run against the tiles surface to help keep my balance. The echoey sound that was quite distinctive at the surface was replaced by a deeper, much quieter almost eerie sound. It got slightly louder the closer I reached the bottom. The heavy metal and canvas of my diving suit was now weightless. The canvas clung to my legs and arms as the waters pressure put tremendous
weight on my body. I felt quite warm, after thinking the water might in fact be freezing, although my fingers did feel like they were swelling up and my ears began to hurt a little and began ringing. Even my teeth hurt as I could feel the air trapped beneath my fillings expand!
I finally reached the bottom and landed perfectly upright, my head stooped down as my heavy suit & I carried on downwards momentarily. I saw the grimy tiled floor and looked up and slowly shuffled around until I was facing the massive expanse of the pool before me. It was quite bright down here, but as I looked up, the surface had all but disappeared and had turned into a beautiful deep blue. Looking back down onto the pools tiled floor, I saw all around my feet various cables and chains coiled into small neat piles. Straight ahead of me I could see the Boeing 747. It looked much bigger than it had from the surface. I found myself walking towards it. As I made my way through various winding cables, heaps of thick dirty rope, chains made up from links the size of my feet and large mesh steel boxes full to the brim with various tools, the 747 got bigger and bigger. I passed several other people dressed in the same way as I. They completely ignored me as if I had been there for years.
As I approached the airplane, my ears had stopped ringing from the pressure of the water and now, in the distance, I could hear the sound of what must have been the pools filters working hard to keep the pools massive watery contents crystal clear. The sound that these machines made which powered the filters made me think of a room, also filled with water, situated behind the main walls of the pool with a number of naked men with large heavy lead boots on, all slowly heaving lengths of heavy chain behind them. Maybe they were ghosts and had been sent to their sealed water filled room as punishment for drowning in the pool.

As I approached the lonely looking giant of an airplane, I suddenly wondered where my air was coming from! I don't remember having any air tanks on my back and there were no air tubes feeding me air from the surface either! I almost began to panic, until I said to myself that I'd be already dead if I wasn't getting any air. I did my best to forget about it for the time being and headed for the plane.
Once I had finally reached the undercarriage, I saw a door leading out of the pool and went to it. The door automatically slid open as I approached it and through it I went. It led outside onto an old cobbled street and although I was still submerged under thousands of gallons of water, I was outside. The surrounding area looked old and dirty. I looked up to see if I could see the surface of the water but it seemed bottomless and faded into the same deep blue as it did from the pool inside. I daren't stray any further outside, in case I got lost. As I turned to walk back into the sliding doors, the man that owned the pool was standing there. I stopped dead and looked at him. He stepped closer to me and said that I walked just like a proper deep sea diver. He then leant in to me and kissed me on my cheek. I felt his prickly stubble press through my helmet and onto my soft skin. I pulled back slightly and told him how prickly he was as I walked away towards the sliding doors once more. The owner looked quite embarrassed as I left him standing there.

This time, just inside the door was another man seemingly keeping guard. He saw me come in and held up an arm as if to say wait. He looked into the pool, both left and right, then back at me. He said it was all clear and nodded for me to enter. I continued back into the pool walking slowly and heavily like a man on the moon might. Progress was slow but steady.
The man who owned the pool, the man who had kissed me, wanted me to work here at the pool, so he would see me everyday. He was back inside the pool with me and told me so. He pointed up to a platform near the middle of the great tiled floor of the pool and said that I had to climb up to it using the almost invisible, tiny steps winding their way up it. The platform was about half the depth of the pool. He told me that everyone else who wanted to work here had to go around the long way and that I was very privileged to be shown up this way. Once up on the narrow looking platform right in the middle of the water, there would be a means of joining the pools workforce by way of entering my personal details into a computer and then begin my time here permanently.




Jason








(C) JPT 2008.........

"One Sad Transmission Down..."

My left arm and his (gigantic) plaster covering the hole that my twelve month post treatment blood test was sucked from...on my 37th birthday (23.01.08)



That Interferon stuff works! It really works! What are the chances eh? Thirty odd years of being Hep C positive and in combination with twenty odd years of living with HIV and swallowing all those powerful HIV drugs that are good for the HIV (mostly), but not so good for your liver...and it has gone away. My Hep C has gone! It ain't coming back! Not unless I'm re-infected somewhere down the line, which isn't entirely impossible seeing as though I still, on a weekly basis, inject myself in exactly the same way in that I was infected in the first place! But hey, if I can live with it for such a long time and stay healthy, I am pretty sure that I can live with it again.
It's been one whole year since I finished my 50wks of Hep C treatment and I feel great! Not that I felt ill before I did the treatment. In fact, I felt pretty good before. I never did suffer from any symptoms from having Hep C it seems. It did do my head in a little (the HIV still does), but physically I felt great. Just as I did (more or less) on treatment and just as I do now. I am pretty adamant that it was my decision to stay as active as I possibly could and cycle my bike so much leading up to and during treatment that kept me so well. Staying fit and active is so important I think. So if you're contemplating treatment, go get a bike and cycle like a madman and you too may have as good a treatment as I. Go for it!




Jason



P.s. Happy third Birthday to little Evie today:)








(C) JPT 2008.........309.39 miles

"My Kayaking for January 2008"

My feet poolside at Ealing Pool, West London, Jan 31st 2008. Ian is in the green boat practicing a manoeuver that I can't remember the name of!



As you can see from last months kayaking stats...I haven't done much! It isn't from not wanting to. It has just been far too wet and the water provided by the rainfall in January has made the rivers swell and run very fast. This is all very well if you have a car waiting for you down stream somewhere, otherwise you will just not be able to get back up stream and back to the car. Maybe if I was in my longer, thinner sea kayak, I might have a better chance. But I have to use my tiny Dagger RPM and trying to paddle up stream in that whilst the river is running the way it has been of late, I would be going backwards! Plus the water is cold;)

The Thursday trips to Ealing are much needed and the warmth of the swimming pool is well appreciated too. And is also a great opportunity to practice my kayak rolls and hand rolls etc. I am really looking forward to this year where kayaking is concerned. I am going to make sure that I get a fair bit of sea kayaking in this year. And there is a lake in North Wales that I will definitely get to this summer!! Last years sea kayaking was pretty thin, in fact I went once, with Lee, to Lulworth Cove. Thats just terrible! Lee, we gotta do more sea kayaking dude!


Below, if you're interested are my stats for January's kayaking.


Thursday 17th January 2008 @ 21:00pm, Ian & others, Ealing Pool, 90mins.

Thursday 24th January 2008 @ 21:00pm, Ian & others, Ealing Pool, 90mins.

Thursday 31st January 2008 @ 21:00pm, Ian & others, Ealing Pool, 90mins.




Jason








(C) JPT 2008.

"My Cycling for January 2008"

Fire! Fire! Heathrow Airport's on fire! Of course it isn't really on fire. It's just the sun setting behind me up on the West side of Richmond Parks Tamsin Trail on the 22nd Jan 2008 (one day before my 37th birthday), over looking Twickenham, Isleworth (where I was born) and Heathrow etc.


So, another cycling year begins. January could have been a better month. It would have been without the cold and chest infection and the absolutely terrible weather that seemed to dominate it! And it seems to be spilling over into February too! I'm a little fed up with the mud and rain to be honest. I don't mind the ice cold or the wind or the silly mild days that we have had too, but the rain doesn't do me any favours. I have decided that it is just far too dangerous to risk going night riding in the Surrey Hills whilst it is wet. I have this bad feeling that I am going to have an accident and injure myself if I continue to take risks! And I am fed up with washing my bike after every ride too. The way things were going, I'd have had no paint left on the bike by April;)

Anyway, so I avoid muddy situations at night and stick to going in the day or just pootle around Richmond Park on the Tamsin Trail. I have been using both bikes recently. Elvis and my old 2005 Kona Caldera (hardtail) "Dessert Storm", who has just had £300 spent on him in the form of two new hubs (XT), spokes, head set (Cane Creek), cable kit, chain, brake pads (Hayes Sintered), cassette (XT) and small and middle chain rings. He's just like new again. It's nice knowing you have two bikes on the go, in case one is out of action so to speak.

What will 2008 bring in the way of mountain biking, besides my normal keep fit/Surrey Hills/RP ride? Looks like I'll be entering Rough Ride this year, as well as a few of the Merida Marathon events. A friend of mine, Matthew of "Blood, Sweat and Tyres" has planned a ride from John 'O Groats to Lands End over a period of 23 days in August and will be cycling most of it off-road. I have been invited to join him for all or part of the ride, but I still haven't decided how much (if any) I will be doing. I really have to think about this one! I have been thinking for a while already and have not yet come to any decision. Damn my haemophilia!!!

Below are my cycling stats for January 2008.




Tuesday 1st January 2008 @ 18:30pm, RP, 15.98 miles, av 13.8, max 30.6 mph, 1hr 9mins, dry, temp 8, wind 4. Total 15.98 miles.

Thursday 3rd January 2008 @ 19:00pm, RP, 18.59 miles, av 12.2, max 22.8 mph, 1hr 31mins, dry, cool, temp 3, wind 8. Total 34.57 miles.

During this break of eight days, I had a horrible cold and also developed a chest infection! It was absolutely awful being holed up indoors for those days that I was ill! All sorts of things were going through my silly head! It doesn't matter how well you deal with or how long you have had HIV for, it still scares me to death when I get ill!

Saturday 12th January 2008 @ 13:00pm, first ride after nasty cold and chest infection!, RP, 20.12 miles, av 11.8, max 27.4 mph, 1hr 42mins, temp 8, wind 9. Total 54.69 miles.

Monday 14th January 2008 @ 19:00pm, RPx2, Ian, 24 miles, muddy, dark & windy, av 11.9, max 25 mph, 2hrs, temp 9, wind 13. Total 78.69 miles.

Wednesday 16th January 2008 @ 14:00pm, RP, 14.25 miles, av 12.7, max 25.1 mph, 1hr 7mins, sunny, cool, muddy, temp 9, wind 5. Total 92.94 miles.

Friday 18th January 2008 @ 15:00pm, 15.02 miles, av 13.2, max 35.7 mph, 1hr 8mins, mild, light, cloudy & very windy, dry, on-road in RP, temp 14, wind 18. Total 107.96 miles.

Monday 21st January 2008 @ 19:30pm, RP on-road, 18.54 miles, av 13.8, max 36.2 mph, 1hr 21mins, dark, windy with a very bright moon, temp 11, wind 22!. Total 126.50 miles.

Tuesday 22nd January 2008 @ 15:00pm (see photo above), RP, 20.10 miles, av 11.8, max 25.5 mph, 1hr 42mins, sunny, cool, temp 8, wind 8. Total 146.60 miles.

Friday 25th January 2008 @ 14:40pm, RP, 23.12 miles, av 12.7, max 27.1 mph, 1hr 49mins, dry, bright & windy, temp 11, wind 16. Total 169.72 miles.

Sunday 27th January 2008 @ 14:00pm, a very busy RP, 20.62 miles, av 12.6 max 25.3 mph, 1hr 35mins, sunny, windy & warm and dry, temp 11, wind 11. Total 190.34 miles.

Tuesday 29th January 2008 @ 14:00pm, RPx2, 20.96 miles, av 13.1 max 25.1 mph, 1hr 35mins, mild, windy, cloudy, temp 9, wind 9. Total 211.30 miles.



Jason








(C) JPT 2008.........211.30 miles.