Asbo went ever so slightly mad this afternoon when a strange cat tried to come in the house, she blocked the cat flap with her body and carried on a loud argument for half an hour, the poor little stranger was quite insistent but ultimately lost the battle.

Lots of toing and froing today, dropping off Kit with her mum at the end of a long night of delivering babies, going to the doctor (only took two and a half weeks to get an appointment)...now I start the long process of weaning myself off opiates after twenty years, after all this time and despite alarmingly huge daily doses my physiology has adapted so much it has compromised morphine's pain relieving ability leaving me with ever increasing dependency and side effects for diminishing returns, the pain clinics plan now is to gradually take me off the stuff. I'd be lying if I didn't admit it's a scary prospect, if I'm even an hour late renewing my slow release patches I start to get horrific withdrawal symptoms and I'm going to be cutting back at a rate of almost 10% a week...gulp...there are alarmingly few alternatives to replace it so pain management will be largely down to psychology...On the plus side I am hoping it will eventually liberate my mind from the all pervading fog, the constant exhaustion of the morphine addict.