What happened to a "weekly" blog? he said weakly!

Hi, it's time for another episode. Has much changed since the last chapter? Am I better or worse or - just swinging the lead?

There sure have been some deterioration, but also, pleased to say, some improvements.

Firstly any deterioration is centred around the re-growth of swollen glands, aching limbs and increased fatigue. Daily life now consists of two hour spells of alertness: cognitive and physical . These are sandwiched around times when I need some recovery and likely have a nap or – dare I say it a bit of light reading or screen time - of dear Lord even "Homes Under the Hammer" and "Flog it"!!!!. To what depths have I sunk?

The improvements are about positivity and light exercises focused on keeping my spirits and respiratory system well. Also keeping away any self-pity and guilt feelings.

Kym has been a superb companion and nurse. I would be lost without her ongoing day to day support and positive guidance. Our families and friends have really rallied around. We are hugely grateful. The Macmillan staff have been and paid a couple of visits; once to offer benefits and that kind of support during which Munchie puked an the rug! Also we've had to make a couple of calls; which resulted in a hospital visit to get checked out. And more recently we had medical and emotional support from one of the community team of nurses. When better I shall be pursuing you all to help raise some cash for them. I don't think I could bake a cake.

At the same time we have gratitude to Headway for their support in many ways - official and informal.

I've tried some readings to help me come to terms and maintain some creativity. I've tried some digital drawings. Both have required some skill, patience and application. I'm not very hot on the last two. I have (had) some skills – but I seem to need to re-learn many techniques. I swapped (basically with two ebay transactions from a Win7 laptop of the HP (not the sauce) variety for a pre-historic (late 2006) MacBook Pro – so I'm also having to re-learn some key commands and a new lalyout. The large 17” screen compensates for much of that; as does the way many of the applications work smoothly. It does have a noisy ventilation system; which is still a tad noisy even though I cleaned it inside and replaced one of the fans.

I'm now using my new keyboard – it's bluetooth! Although there is nothing blue and the only resemblance to anything toothy are the ivory keys on a silver background. They are quite unlike my teeth – in both colour and shape. No yellow! It's actually rather comfortable to type – my skills are rubbish. Even worse than prior to this illness. I dabbled with an online typing tutorial but gave up after the G F J and K combinations. Not many novels or songs written using only those letters. I may return to the learning experience at a later date. I signed up but I didn't pay anything.

The days, nay weeks, have slipped by - untroubled by much effort from yours truly. In terms of fitness; all the good work I did at the end of 2014 seems to have been wasted. The last few weeks' inertia have softened my tightly honed physique. I have been very laid back as regards exercise; although in my mitigation - I've had no energy and motivation has been pretty useless.


We have missed Church, I haven't kept my website updated, what a waste!

http://www.kymandroger.co.uk  - same as at mid-January.

I haven't completed the Church Newsletter (I have written some stuff) Any way that's the end of the haven'ts.

I did put on a homebrew of dark bitter. So that, at least shows that I'm considering the future with some joyful promise of the rich, nutty, hoppy-tanged ale. The homebrew might turn out well too.

I really like the mood and music of Lucinda Williams' latest album "Down where the spirit meets the bone" Swampy, dirty, deep, emotionally charged her gravelly voice just right for the gritty band pumping, swirling and grooving behind her. Including a contribution by the late, great Ian Maclaggan.

We've had a weekly trip out at quiet times - Dunstable was a cold wet disappointment - reaching its high spot in teh Gary Cooper which was full of pensioners and students (odd mix) and no heating. You needed  a hot meal to survive. Fortunately it's a Weatherspoons and the grub is cheap and cheerful. Woburn was not much better I have to conclude - nothing open really (well it was cold, foggy February) We had coffee and bun in a teashop which cost more than two drinks and fish and chips in Weatherspoons. The little antique market was open and worth a mooch. There are no public loos in Woburn - say no more, but I will spare you the tale.

Three weeks or so down the track I'm getting a little irritated by the macbook's noise. I've managed to get most programs working and audio stuff works well with it. LibreOffice is flawless. GIMP is only version 2.6 so many of the advances I have don't work. Networking seems pretty flawless too. Apart from the audio - just like Linux. I may convert it to run on Linux although it's not up for 64bit. I may just anonomise it and flog it! What an idiot. 

This Blogger spellcheck doesn't like much of my language. Every other word seems gilded with the red wavy undescore. I don't think I've swore once. Damn Yankees. Oops I did it (not again Britney!)

We've had a nice selection of visitors; thank you all for coming. Every visit has been appreciated. 

Hasmita brought some healthy food, Noreen brought some naughty food and the girls from Headway kept us supplied with lovely Bread Pudding and our usual Friday Lunch. 

Pete, Sarah and James have been up and I've had many long conversations with Anna - on subjects wide-ranging from Peter Kay to Climate Change and the Bishops' social concern. 

Jan has kept a caring eye on us and we both had a lovely hour or so with Diarmuid and Alan - and raised the roof with some acoustic country rock. I thoroughly enjoyed it; although it knackered me. 

Alan has been round and we tried to get inside Garageband via his new Focusrite audio interface. Blind leading blind was the general description; although we eventually got some good levels on recording two guitars at once.If it had been videoed it would have resounded around the home-music-producer circles. Two old gits trying to get along with modern tech - where they would have been better employed with a two-track taper recorder. But, all you nay-sayers we actually got it to work.

Kym's folk, Pam, Lesley and Karen came down to visit Wednesday. Great to have the ringing of voices around the table again. They brought gifts and a lovely biriani for lunch. I had a tinge of trepidation as Karen might spot the neglect her kindly-donated cooker had received from me. 

I eventually (in all fairness not long) received my pension forecast from the DWP. It seems that having forty seven years' contributions do amount for something. I've now got to get well enough to enjoy it for a good few years. And I can't start getting it for another ten months. The private pension is not going to amount to  much so please don't ever ask for a handout!!

I'm putting any such thoughts out of the way for a while as we go to London on Monday 23rd. That will certainly start a new chapter. I won't thrill you with my anxieties at this point.

Time to blogg off. Well the insomnia has returned along with bumps and lumps and some achy joints. Do as Kym says - keep taking the tablets!!

Anna has recently painted a lovely impression of the tree of life - I've scanned it and when I can find the file I will post it. But this one at Stockwood seems to be a bit more like I feel!

You've gotta laff! 

Bye for now,

R

A bit of restoration

Vinyl Restoration!

This is not a medical update. I want to bring a little extra joy into this twisted world of illness. One of the chalenges of this period of incapacity is to take on the usual demons which plagued me through the adult years - and perhaps beyond! One such is untidiness.

Kym must have cringed every other day of our loving time together. I'm quite a messy old buggar. But quite coincident to these illness-dominated times she bought, as a self-joint Christmas present, a set of units from NOAH; a local charity supporting homeless people. I viewed the purchase with some anxiety or trepidation. My fear: I was to be, once again, in the frame for re-organisation. Kym has such a fair, firm hand when the going gets tough. I'm in good care - but the thought of everything been found a new place . . . . 

But the Lord is good and kind and aware of all our short-comings. No such fears realised!

So back to the point of the post.

These new units inspired me to comment - "I could set up my record deck and speakers on the top." Kym agreed and thought it a good idea.

I currently have no energy or initiative skills - certainly unfit to work at the moment. But, to cut a long story short, I pressed myself into action. Although my voice of un-reason was pleading - "leave it a few days" - I had a mission to achieve. 

A few minutes of tracing down all the leads under my desk upstairs enabled me to isolate the Sansui PD - 20 from the web of other leads. I could then separate the pre-amp and its adapter. The Akai RPM30 monitors were in the loft (I had almost decided to sell them to finance some other reckless Ebay purchase) Here's a shot. A shot of the new setup - with Kym dancing in the background!

To move the story along a bit - to avoid you dropping off - I am please to tell you I've set the system up and it works!!

When I say system - because that is what HiFi buffs would say - I only mean a small collection of deck, pre-amp and monitors. I will probably never have a HiFi system - like what the buffs have - because that costs thousands  - check out Richer Sounds etc.

Any way - Kym was reorganising our "studio" room upstairs and I was having a major internal stress in case I had to lose my little audio area.

But despite my fears, Kym is so much better than the usual and I've been advised to move a couple of bulky items but overall not too much.

So at the end of the day; a good result. We have a room with good music downstairs which we can use and have fun. It's clear and available for personal use  - like now I'm listening to Sade - Diamond LIfe and writing this Blog - but also when guests come we can listen in the style of old skool.

If you've read my previous blogs you'll know, sort of, what's going on. We haven't anything further to say about the medical stuff. We were so happy to have my brother Pete and my daughter Sarah visit us yesterday. Sarah was in teh toppest form and entertained and intrigued us whilst she sort out our nails. Kym and I had a great nail job - mie are certainly perfect for fingerpicking the guitar and ukulele.