Early morning excursioning.

I stir in my pit, slothsome and wretched, fumble for the light and fail. Water. Light. The unhappy memory that I gave up smoking more than 6 years ago amputating another avenue of joy from my morning ritual, as it does every morning. I rise.

My gut growls and twists. My throat is raw. I crawl around my the now-enormous stomach which is snoozing on the side nearer the door, drop from the bed and, after a few failed trial runs, manage to attain a vertical stance with my feet very much at the lower end of my person. I stand.

For some time I remain upright, torn between the almost all encompassing desire to rejoin the slumbering Jim in the now legendary land of nod and the physical necessity of evacuating my bowels. Unhappily I drag my back foot forward. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I walk.

Realisation.

Dressing quickly I point the children in the vague direction of a box of Wheetos and struggle aboard Beauchamp and force my way through the front door and into a world of halogen pain. The transition from pavement to street takes some negotiating, but once I gain momentum inertia works with me and I arrive at Boots without major incident.

Boots is closed. I have left my telephone on the bedside bookshelf and have no idea what time it is, so I head for St Thomas to consult the ancient timepiece installed in the tower. The clock tells of twenty minutes before nine. How it comes to be that I am abroad so early I have no idea, but there it is. I return to the high street pharmacist. I wait.

My stomach is beginning to seriously knot now. I need to stop the pain, but I cannot yet find release. The doors open to allow a staff member to enter and I am told of two minutes. Another shelf stacker arrives and the doors do not close behind him. Urchins are shooed away from the automatic doors so as to allow their closure and locking. There is further talk of two minutes. Two minutes which will become a popular mantra of the guardian of the store.

A street cleaner arrives. He is a campanologist at St Thomas and a genial fellow. We chat a while and discuss tomorrow's Eucharist and this afternoon's wedding. A young couple in what my father would certainly have described as a hairdresser's car arrive and walk to the doors. With great chagrin I watch as the portal opens to allow them to enter. No wonder they are so smug, if the world treats them like this so often. I imagine that they are visiting for the Chlamydia screening which is proudly advertised on hoardings around the store. I search.

I am not shy and, when immediate perusals bear no fruit, I ask a plump, happy, smile of a woman in an ill-fitting uniform whether there is a stock of bathroom scales and where, should this prove to be the case, I might find these items. Two minutes later and I am pedalling homeward. It is becoming touch and go as to whether I will have time to use them.

Pull tab from battery compartment. Replace cover. Set slider to 'St', 'Lb' or 'Kg'. St. Saint weight. Tap the centre of the scales, on I jump. 14st 4lbs. No time to consider this, I veritably flee to the throne room.
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I am having a poo
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I am reading 'The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived'. My knees sport red discs of elbow pressure marks. Relief.

I return to my new-bought scales, discarded on the dining room parquet, and find that I am now 14st 1lb. A 3lb poo which took half an hour to arrange, but at least now I will not have to use the facilities in The Range tomorrow.

It's not even a very nice set of scales. Also, my charts are starting to look somewhat nocturnal.