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.
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 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
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
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