It is a truth I suspect often observed, and, on occasion, written of: get a good day's words in, in fact a good week's worth, and then you'll have a couple of days that make the thought of crawling, exhausted, sweaty, cramping, to the keyboard, an effort beyond human ken.

At the moment, my hamstrings hate me, and I've got that phantom space surrounding my head that warns me of what a fool's game it is to be working outside in the August heat. We have well and truly hit the beastly days, the days where walking outside around 3pm is akin to hitting the pavement with your face.

I have evidence of this in one way. It's the height of wasp season, so an idiot (i.e. your humble correspondent) with a can of spray and a train of geckos following along behind for the easy stunned prey on offing cleared our porch two days past. Something of an easy chore after the good day's writing, and a time to chalk it up as a moment of fun and games and terror.

The geckos do a good job, but there are places and particular breeds of wasp that get the best of them in this heat. I feel for the upset stomach at least one of the brave little beasties is facing: the red wasp struggled, stunned, and the lizard king's get sprang on him in his last efforts...

And then yesterday was devoured by marching band duties. Our daughter's band is busy every year; this year's a big travel year, so we've a few more efforts than normal. The morning we devoted to building props needed for the show. Which was brutal enough, but then the evening was a fundraiser. Pasta night.

This is the second time I've cooked this year, the first one was hamburgers and hot dogs in the spring concert season. We had two pits going, mine was my charcoal pit, and if you've ever cooked a hundred hamburgers or more on charcoal, you know the flame-grilled madness I was surrounded by.

It didn't get out of control, I knew what I had coming and so could stay ahead of it. But every batch on the grill had that special moment, where I'd lift the lid and bow to the inferno a'raging.

Last night was similar. Pasta for three hundred plus, sauce and meatballs and all the rest.

It's been a while since I fought the forge-fire volcanoes of a commercial range. We reached one point where we had three big pots of water plus a big pot of sauce on. Where the three pots met, the flame arose in blistering aspect.

It took me a few passes before I noticed that I'd burnt the hair from my right arm. Fortunately, the left hand pass was over the griddle, so that part of my mind that knew better switched my act to left-hand stirring.

After I went and scrubbed my arms. No one needed my burnt stubble in their food. Good habits come back, eventually...

I need to remember to look for an easy-to-stop at blood center. I was spoiled, for years, I need only pass a blood donation bus at begging time. Or, at a different job, all I had to do was walk a block or so to the permanent location.

It's harder to do certain things when you don't see them every day. Donating blood is like that. When it's easy, of course. When I have to think about it, the months pass, the jobs take more time. And then I look up and realize how long it's been.

So I have to do a little homework now and look for a place that's easy to get to. Same thing as with my gym membership. I had to carve out the time, experiment with it, until I found something that I could more or less consistently.

And forgive myself when I don't get to it as often as I'd like to. At least I'm going.