The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

Fighting Covid was tough but getting over it was probably tougher.  For the first few days after testing positive I felt ill and my body was facing an unpleasant battle against the nastiest virus it had ever come across. Then the main symptoms began to dwindle away and I sort of thought 'well, that could have been worse'. The problem was, it didn't end there.  Obviously one of the biggest issues is that having Covid means you have to self-isolate for ten days. When you are feeling really ill this isn't a great issue because you have no desire to leave the house anyway. But once you start feeling better it's pretty unpleasant. Of course I totally understand that I have been infectious and that I could spread this disease if I broke the rules and headed out. That did not however mean that I in anyway enjoyed being under house arrest.  We've all been through lockdowns and have spent much more time indoors than we would normally would during the pandemic but this fe...

Realistically, it's only a matter of time before everyone suffers a bout of Covid at one point or another. Unfortunately this week it turned out to be my turn. I'm not actually sure when Covid first hit me. Last Sunday I woke up and felt pretty ill so the first thing I did was take a lateral flow test. I waited the allotted time and it remained negative. I spent much of the day feeling unwell and being sick but I gradually began to feel better and had had no symptoms that matched Covid whatsoever so I went to work on Tuesday. Later that evening I felt worse but just assumed I perhaps should have taken another day off and went to bed. I awoke at 2AM and was instinctively aware that something was wrong, took another lateral flow test and a second line indicating I had tested positive appeared.  The moment of realising I had Covid was quite overwhelming. My first thought was for the people I'd seen over the previous few days. I felt really guilty about having gone into work bu...

Sometimes I have a period where I go about my business considering myself to be a normal person but then something happens that is a bitter reality check. I'm dyspraxic and my brain doesn't function in the same way as most other people.  This week is Dyspraxia Awareness Week and I always like to do my best to spread a little awareness. I spent my whole childhood and adolescence continually feeling different and inadequate before finally learning I have dyspraxia aged twenty-one. I'm still really annoyed that I was denied any support due to the ignorance of the world at large. If you look at a list of dyspraxic traits in children I ticked pretty much every box yet no-one had any clue whatsoever. Other neurodivergent conditions like autism, ADHD and dyslexia are fairly well understood by the general population and certainly are well understood in most educational environments (though there's still enormous room for improvement) but I feel that dyspraxia is still something...

Twenty years ago today, on the 11th September 2001, four US passenger jets were seized by suicide attackers. Two were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, another crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. Just under three thousand people were killed. I have no direct connection to the event but in a way it still changed my life.  I was nine at the time and had had an ordinary, forgettable day at school. It was the lollipop man that safely guided us across the road twice a day that asked my Dad if he had seen what had happened. Whilst the internet very much existed, this was before the time when you were constantly connected to the world and no-one I knew had a smartphone. My Dad had been working and hadn't switched on the TV, which was the main source of news in those days.  We arrived home and someone switched on the TV. We'd always watched children's TV for a while before dinner tim...

I always get so much benefit from spending time in nature and every so often something truly magical happens... It was a Sunday morning and I'd arranged to meet my parents after they'd finished what they were doing in Christchurch by late morning. It suddenly occurred to me that we would be meeting quite close to one of my favourite nature reserves, a place called Stanpit Marsh, and the timing meant I could easily have a few hours wandering around there before the meet.  I was up and out the house unusually early for the school holidays and found myself parked up with my shiny new walking boots adorning my feet. Off I went and shortly after I began walking the sun broke through the clouds, which was much needed after a gloomy week.  Butterflies and bees flew between flowers in the hedgerows as I headed to the entrance of the nature reserve. Many people overlook the smaller side of nature but I have a special fascination with invertebrates. You only have to stop and look a sunn...

This time last year I stole the format of one of my favourite podcasts to be used as a blog post . Each week on 'Films to Be Buried With' host Brett Goldstein tells a guest they've died and then gets them to talk about their life in film. Since then Brett has added a new format that allows him to have returning guests subtitled 'The Resurrection' and so this week I'm stealing the new format!  You died by tripping over an uneven paving slab, falling into the road and getting hit by a lorry but good news, you've been brought back to life! Excellent. I've had a very busy year given I've been dead all this time! Everyone wants to know all about your life but they want to know about your life through film. What was the last film you saw? At the time of writing that was French lesbian drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire . I'm going through a phase of more arty films right now and this critically-acclaimed film was one of them. It's so brilliantly well...

Scars- we all have them. There's nothing metaphorical going on here, I'm literally talking about scars, i.e. a mark on the body where a wound has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed. With every scar telling a story, I thought today I would take you on a journey through time and my scars- a sort of scar trek if you will. (I am not saying I have written that post entirely because of that pun I'm very pleased with but must admit that it played a significant factor.) Most people don't realise that I actually have quite a decent scar on my face and that's because it's hidden under my left eyebrow. It's not that difficult to find though and would be very obvious if I were to shave my eyebrow off. This occurred when I was round about three years old and was having an excellent time using my Mum and Dad's bed as a trampoline. Somewhat inevitably after a little while this went wrong and I ended up falling off the bed, catching my hea...