September up-date

I've been thinking about this journal for a few days and rather than let the month just slip away in complete silence I thought I'd write an up-date of happenings around here.

Physically things are still improving. At night I'm still bothered by aches and pains, which isn't so grand, but during the day I am able to see changes for the better and that's what keeps me slowly but steadily plodding along the path to recovery. Sally left me with some putty to roll and shape with my affected right hand and I also have a pegboard to practise some of the finer movements of picking up and putting down. It's unbelievably tiring and definitely frustrating but I think I am so bloody-minded about getting better that I will not be beaten by such tasks. This is quite a revelation to me because I would have imagined that I would 'crumble' when presented with such a devastating event but instead I find the preferred option for me is to face it with the determination to one day beat it - one day soon.

I want to be well again, not just 'well enough' but doing the same and perhaps even more than I did before. An event this last weekend gave rise to an interesting thought. Jersey's boat has just sailed to victory in the Times Clipper Round the World Challenge. It was an exciting finish because after one year away and 35,000 miles the two front runners were so close in points that everything hinged on the mere hop from Jersey to Liverpool. On this very last leg we clinched it and I sat there watching all the boats sailing in, quite choked up with emotion that our little island had done so well. Ordinary punters, some without any prior sailing experience at all, had applied to be crew on one or more legs of the journey. How wonderful to have been part of that adventure and what an experience to carry away with you for the rest of your life. Is it silly to think that I too might join them one day? I don't think so. I've had one or two unthinking medical staff, who frankly should have known better, making negative comments to me about how I will never be the same again. They can't possibly know what my future will bring and my aim is to prove to them how stupid and insensitive their comments were.

What I am currently finding a bind is the mind numbing boredom that is starting to set in. The house here is a bit too much like a trap at the moment rather than my home, my safe haven. I suspect the stroke has slightly altered my vision because reading for too long makes me feel unpleasantly light headed. Until such time as I can arrange a visit to the optician therefore there is a limit to the amount of time I can spend looking at books. I find television is depressingly boring and it is just too easy to be pulled down by it, mindlessly watching hours and hours of complete dross. TV is simply awash with angst-ridden people who feel a strange compunction to share it all with us, the viewing public. When the screen isn't taken up by these people screaming angrily at one another then repeated house makeover programmes depict toothy presenters endlessly and gleefully demonstrating that a glue gun and miles and miles of MDF can create high style. It's all quite mesmerising when you have little else to occupy your time. Only later in the day will I realise that my poor mood is probably actually more attributable to watching mindless rubbish than anything else. I drew the line today and quickly weaned myself away from 'the box' when I found myself, obviously again in a complete mental stupor, idly watching live coverage of a woman undergoing colonic irritation. Some of the chatter between woman and therapist was blanked out but there was still enough to intimately reveal the pattern of her bowel movements - or lack thereof. Why she should opt to do this on telly is beyond me. I mean can you just imagine it? ...She'll now be in a restaurant, on the bus or standing at the tube station and people will come up to her and say:

'Hey, don't I know you from somewhere? Oh yeah, you were on telly with a tube up your bottom.'

Actually the mention of my new CD of seventies pop reminds me of something else that I've failed to tell you here before. It's another unusual side effect of the stroke that I'm working my way around and I have read of others similarly afflicted.

Pre-stroke I was certainly no Montserrat Caballe but I think I can genuinely say that I could sing quite well. At the moment I have to practice this along with my other lost skills and, trust me, you really wouldn't want to be here listening to me. My family is spared the aural torture as I currently sing strictly when I'm alone. To be perfectly serious this is a lost skill I am finding surprisingly frustrating since I now realise that not only did I listen to music a huge amount pre April 22nd, I was also deriving a tremendous amount of pleasure from singing constantly too. Like everything else I imagine that all I need to remedy this problem is practice, practice, practice.

What has also pleased me is the fact that the slipper orchid I bought in the autumn of last year is currently growing two flower spikes. I don't know how this can be because although my family is wonderfully attentive to me, my plants are generally ignored nowadays. I have many times found this orchid to be bone dry and yet this apparent neglect seems to have yielded results. When it blooms I will do my best to work that camera.