Mattresses, Medicals and Motorways

Is been a stressful and busy couple months recently. Some property maintenance bits and bobs, builders quotes for another job, filling rooms, Nana dieing, starting a new meetup (more about this in another blog) taking part in a drug trial and trying to see friends and maintain and support a relationship. It’s all gotten a bit much and was brought to my attention by the doctors when they reviewed my blood pressure readings.

I’ve been taking part in a drug trial recently and as you would expect, they monitor lots of bodily things including blood pressure. Seems mine is quite high for someone who is not overweight (just). I’ve been feeling the pressure too, its all self imposed. I’m very keen, working to get to my goals but its clearly having an effect on my health which isn’t good.

Now the drug trial is over, and Aimi has worked out her notice period its time for a mini-break. 4 days away on the south coast. I’ve never been to Cornwall before, and after watching lots of Poldark, it looks beautiful so that’s where we are headed… via glamorous Guildford.

I’ve got one last check up to round off the drug trial before I’m pronounced healthy enough to roam the streets unsupervised again. It only took a couple hours and broke up the boring motorway drive down south. Even so, it was still over 5 hours of driving to we reached St Ives and started looking for our overnight stop.

Aimi has complained about the vans bed before, and to be fair, it’s a little uneven. The main bit is a single mattress that was a reject from the houses. The frame the slides out to make it double width and then there are some foam blocks I’ve had cut to size that slip into space to make the rest of the bed. These foam pieces are a bit harder than the mattress and mean whoever gets them, ends up sleeping on the wonk.

Now Aimi has changed jobs, her new one is home based so we are setting up a home office in the spare room. This means the bed has to go and its being replaced by 2 desks (I get 1 too, how exciting!) This means the double mattress is being re-purposed for the van. It didn’t take long this morning to cut it down to the right size. It’s definitely thicker than the original and all the foam is the same too. Much more comfy.

After getting to St Ives, we took a small road out along the coast. This narrowed significantly for a couple hundred meters and I could hear twigs scraping along the vans paint as it sucked in its sides to squeeze through. Eventually we found a lay-by next to old mining pump houses and settled in for the night, the derelict smoke stacks looming overhead.