It has been a mixed week.
It did not get off to a good start when I went for my class 2 medical. One of the first tests they do is an ECG. So having got me all wired up, the nurse said that she was having trouble getting a clean trace. After a while she went and got the doctor. After another ten minutes the medical was halted and I went in to see the doc. He said that my trace was showing regular, extra heartbeats (ectopic heartbeats) and did I have any family history of heart disease. Whilst there is some history, many of my relatives lived to a ripe old age. He said that these ectopic heartbearts were not on the trace taken one year earlier and showed me the printout. It seems very likely that this double heartbeat is completely benign, especially as I can feel absolutely no symptoms. It can be caused by alcohol or caffeine. The printouts have been sent off to the CAA and I have got to wait and see what happens next. In the meantime, I cannot fly and I am reducing my intake of caffeine. I am still going to have a few glasses of wine each week.
I happened to be looking at a web forum on GA recently and the topic of flying safety was being discussed. Various statistics were being posted and the conclusion was that it was more dangerous to ride a motorbike than fly. In fact the numbers of hours flown each year is often quite low. In practice you can improve the odds a lot if you are an occasional flyer like me because I only fly in good weather and hire well maintained aircraft. I am also very rigorous in checking that there is enough fuel on board. Quite a few fatal accidents are caused by running out of fuel.
One contributor reckoned that being a private pilot was safer than expected because the regular medical check can reveal health issues early. I think I now agree with that.
On Thursday and Friday we had really gloomy, wet and windy days. Also some of my shares were doing very badly on the stock exchange, although a few others are improving to the point where I could sell them. The result is that I sold no shares over the whole week and this harms my plan of making £100 a day.
So it was great to have a nice, crisp sunny weekend. I had to wear extra layers when taking the dog for a walk, but having blue skies and sunshine was a tonic. I took some photos. I was a slight shame because many leaves had turned to beautiful autumn shades of yellow, red and brown a few days earlier, but the wind and rain had taken the trees past their best.
Some of the leaves still remained on the trees.
The pond is behind this clump of shrubbery.
Bisley Green on an Autumn day.
Many trees still have their leaves much later than usual.
A good crop of acorns.
A Saturday afternoon football match on the playing field.
My dog Angus hates the noise associated with a football match and so he puts his head and tail down and tries to pull you past the pitch as quickly as possible. Here he is pulling so hard that I was unable to keep the camera focused.
I am hoping that things get back on track in the coming week.
Regards
Peewit
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