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5°, clear skies, heavy legs (the day after the first run after a break often feels especially sluggish), adequate pace.

The story this morning is my fingers, which are still behaving oddly. When they started [playing up about a month ago, I put it down to simple old chilblains; there are several ways in which that still seems possibly to apply. But I’m also considering the possibility that it’s an initial flare-up of arthritis. The index fingers on both hands, especially the first knuckle on each, are the primary locus of the symptoms. The joints are puffy and stiff, prickly and the fingertips very sensitive with pins-and-needles sensations. Beginning yesterday morning, the fingertips seemed to be returning to normal, but joints are still swollen (I haven’t been able to wear my Grandfather’s high-school class ring on my right ring finger for weeks, though it fits onto my left ring finger) and this morning, not having taken any anti-inflammatories for a day or so, my index fingers feel puffy — almost as if they were the hot-dog fingers in Everything Everywhere, though not as long and floppy. Margaret has decided to apply some cortisone cream. We’ll see how that goes. I’d go to the GP, of course, except that the NHS is overburdened in the first in9stance because the @#$%$& government won’t fund them adequately, and this week junior doctors are striking after fifteen years of below-inflation wage rises. It seems a waste of everyone’s time to go in for puffy achey fingers when cancer patients are waiting for treatment….