I never used to field cold most of the time, but now it is a standing joke that I am “a reptile”. Lots of people say that it is because I am in a wheelchair and therefore not moving about as much as normal BUT that just infuriates me, because it’s not like I never do anything as I tried to cycle on my indoor bike almost everyday and the people usually saying this are sitting down reading or doing a puzzle or similar at the time. I know lots of people in wheelchairs who are not cold all the time!
It’s not even as if I live in a particularly cold climate (it’s temperate) in southern England. Sure it’s not Mediterranean or continental, but I don’t live near the coast and so even living on an island I am as near as can be to a more central position in the southern part of my homeland. Unfortunately, I’d loved to visit Scandinavia and even take a boat trip to see the Northern Lights, but I don’t see that as my holiday destination any time soon!
Let’s start with the “physical” clutter and by that I mean all the medical aids that have been provided and/or bought yet no longer required.
I am fortunate enough to live in a house with large rooms, but that has the disadvantage that the medical professionals with whom I interact and to have (with the best of intentions) provided me with lots of pieces of equipment. Some I use almost every day, but others just sit in a corner with no way to return them easily, as they have no identifiable labels giving details of who it was that provided them.
There are also the eBay purchases that I just can’t get rid of no matter how hard I try – Freecycle, eBay etc.
The motorised wheelchair that is just too small for me and came as an added extra with the electric stair climber that is still in use for my parents house in France where there are both stairs to get into the house and internal stairs.
The manual standing frame that I bought of eBay to try and practice standing, but is hard to operate/quite uncomfortable and since the purchase of my standing wheelchair just before Christmas is simply no longer required.
The lightweight wheelchair that I bought years ago and sits in our shed. At the time it was great, but it doesn’t fold easily and again is simply not required any more.
I could go on, but I think that is quite enough for the physical objects!
To expand the concept there is also the “mental” clutter that is part and parcel of my condition. The sudden depression and uncontrollable crying and feeling useless – but I don’t want to dwell on that as it is self-perpetuating!
Considering my limitations I shouldn’t really complain about my life, because I have been very lucky and still enjoy an awful lot of opportunities that I have. Going to festivals, visiting relatives both in England and France and (although I haven’t done it for a long time) having the opportunity to get out and visit the local Arboretum.
So, let’s just put on a happy face and smile, smile, smile.
After the travails of Christmas bed-wise, Kevin decided to keep a lookout on eBay, Gumtree … to see if he could find a similar adjusting bed or at least a bed frame that would accommodate adjusting units like we have at home. As this type of arrangement is much more common in Europe (France, Germany etc) my dad was also keeping an eye on what was available near to them. As is always the case, one morning my dad sent an e-mail identifying the type of bed we were looking for listed on eBay UK and it was located in Swindon! Kevin set to work having several e-mail exchanges with the seller, who was not prepared to let him view the bed or agree a “buy it now” price. So we waited until the auction was nearly finishing, Kevin placed his bid, was the only person to do so and so we got it for the minimum price. We had no idea about what we were getting condition wise, as the pictures on eBay were not very helpful, but off Kevin went to collect the bed, which fortunately fitted in our car. See photos below for what we got …
Two Beds = GB ‘Queen size’
Mattress on one bed removed to show adjusting slats
And that’s how it works!
So stage I the beds are transported to our house. Kevin fitted the whole ensemble into our car! Bed fame, 2 mattresses and assorted electronics. Not perfect but pretty good for £80.
Underside of mattresses
Covers removed & Charlie tests
The mattress covers (although looking good on top) were shot on the bottom. So both were immediately removed and chucked away, leaving only the green, foam mattresses exposed – As you can see, they obtained Charlie’s “seal of approval”.
Charlie’s “Seal of approval”
Now to stage II and Kevin set about scouring the Internet for the best price he could find for new mattress covers (each bought one at time so that we could check the quality). Closely followed by an order for two sheets – and now the bed was ready for testing by us humans! Not that we don’t trust Charlie’s judgement, but he does seem willing to sleep just about anywhere. So, popcorn at the ready and we had decided to start the ‘night test’ in luxury by watching a film on TV (sitting reclined in bed) before what we hoped would be a good night’s sleep.
Me sitting reclined in bed, waiting for the film to start.
Kevin did join me for the film, but someone did need to take the photograph and although the doors were shut before Kevin joined me. As expected, as soon as the film finished, I laid down to sleep (with my legs raised a little), whilst Kevin tidied round and fed the cat before joining me.
CONCLUSIONS: The bed worked fine, although we both agreed that the mattresses were very firm and that some more padding was required by means of memory foam mattress toppers.
By the time that my parents arrived from France at the end of January, we had collected together most of the bits for the bed and we now needed to see how much they could fit in their car (alongside collection of a grandmother clock). Actually, it was quite a lot and they left with one mattress, corresponding mattress topper + the electrics for the raise space/lower mechanism.
Now Kevin could stack the remaining parts of the bed upright at the back of our living room and we spent a few days living ‘as normal’. We had all discussed removal of the horrible fabric wrapping around the frame, which needed to be done next before we could decide how to proceed. There were loads of staples holding the fabric in place, which Kevin laboriously removed to reveal the horrible construction that lay below – we have no idea (again) of what to expect …
I suppose it would have been a bit too much to expect that the wooden side panels would be beautiful, smooth wood that could just be varnished! However, the crack would need fixing first with lots of wood glue & clamps. Before removal of the fabric, we had considered applying a thin layer of wood veneer, but after looking at the rough construction we were faced with, we have now started thinking about the possibility of using self-adhesive, vinyl planks of ‘fake wood’ and all agreed that this will provide the best finish.
Last stage will be our next trip over to France in March, when we’ll take over the remaining parts of the bed ready to be assembled in my parent’s house. Fortunately, we are arriving in the morning and so Kevin and my dad can have fun all day (if necessary) getting the bed ready for my bedtime. My mum is having a knee operation just before we arrive and so will be having to “keep her feet up”, so while the men are hard at work and looking after us, we will have plenty of time to chat, read, play games & watch TV together.
Probably the less said about Christmas 2019, the better. We were due to visit my parents in France for about a week staggering Christmas and the New Year. However, having arrived very late (about midnight French time), we were fine but looking forward to a well-deserved sleep … and that’s where the problems started. I (Debra) woke up in the morning of Christmas Eve stiff as a board and my back was ‘killing me’. I spent the day intermittently moping around either sitting in a chair watching TV or lying down on my side in bed. I was dreading waking up the next day, but hoping that by rearranging pillows etc, that my back would be much better – it wasn’t!
Kevin managed to get me downstairs for breakfast using the stair climber and we had the ‘usual’ breakfast of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, toast and bucks fizz (or in my case predominantly orange juice with just a little ‘champagne’ to provide the fizz). We then all decanted to the living room upstairs, so stair climber again for me and opened cards and the few presents that Kevin and I had brought with us, my parents having announced at the end of November that they weren’t proposing to ‘do presents’ this year as there was nothing that they wanted (despite having asked for something in October/early November that they had seen on eBay) and saying “we didn’t mind, did we?”. As it happened, there was nothing particularly affordable (i.e. only big things that we were buying ourselves anyway) that we wanted either, BUT we had bought them a book about 60 years of the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that we had bought them at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in October! I had also pestered Kevin to take me to a couple of local ‘Christmas fairs’ at which we had bought a couple of items. We got each other a single book from Amazon but that was it. Merry Christmas everyone …
You’d have thought that nothing else could go wrong, but unfortunately Kevin managed to mis-judge the number of steps between the upper ground floor (our bedroom + lounge) and lower ground floor (main living area + kitchen) of my parents house and sprain his ankle meaning that he was hobbling around and not too sure of his lifting and balance, which is kind of important when he is having to transfer me around. Fortunately, the pharmacy was open on the 26th December and as my mother was going up there, she managed to get a foot brace, which at least helped stabilise Kevin’s foot although the transfers were still caused a bit of consternation for both of us. At this point, we agreed to see if there was a way to shorten our stay and find a suitable ferry sailing to return to the UK early.
Despite the rather muted Christmas day, Boxing Day was much more jolly because an English couple that my parents have known for a few years now (and despite the fact that they had stayed up very late the previous evening) were coming over for late lunch / early dinner and they had got much more into the Christmas spirit – Pixie come Santa outfit for the lady included ! I’m afraid that I got a bit tired over lunch / dinner and departed quite early thereafter to go and have a lie down. This meant that I ended up asleep and didn’t say goodbye to our guests. However, once much revived after my sleep in the evening I logged in to my computer and confirmed that there was an alternative sailing that we could take back to the UK on 27th December. So in the morning of the 27th, Kevin contacted the ferry company and managed to move our booking to the sailing that afternoon (at about 4.30 p.m.) with only a small cost penalty. We contacted the people who were coming in to look after Charlie and let them know that we would be home early and so their services would be foreshortened. I have to admit that I was looking forward to sleeping in our adjustable bed to see if I could sort out my back quickly and Kevin assured me that his ankle had improved enough to drive and so at about 3 p.m. we set off to the port with picnic of various foodstuffs that we had not finished from previous meals. The weather in France for our journey back to the port was horrible – very windy, wet and foggy. However, when we got back to Portsmouth much later that evening the weather was good and we had a clear journey back home to be greeted by Charlie, who had had a wonderful time (judging by the photo evidence below).
Kevin’s family (Mum, Dad & Sister) visited us just after New Year and that was really quite enjoyable and much more usual. We all had lots of presents to exchange with one another and although the dinner was not up to Kevin’s usual high standard (not his fault – the stuffed Goose was rubbish!) I’m afraid I had a quick kip after the early afternoon meal, but managed to make it down for ‘Tea’ where I like almost everyone else wasn’t really up to eating much more. Charlie decided to be a real “star” and made himself very noticeable throughout the day, even rubbing around Kevin’s father (who really doesn’t like cats very much!)
The more observant amongst you will realise that September has ‘disappeared’ despite my last (rather mundane) post – Also, that I am late with this post as it is nearly the end of November (whoops, just turned December) … and now we are approaching the end of 2019! So much for my ‘best intentions’ of keeping a regular blog on-line. I can manage to keep a multiple page spreadsheet daily, but the idea of having anything interesting to write about each day just escapes me.
Well first, looking back on it I can’t really remember much interesting happening in September – yes, we did visit my parents in France and it was pleasant, but I can’t really remember much else about it. The weather must have been quite sunny, because I have lots of photos from Kevin of outdoor plants and butterflies, insects etc. – I think my summary of September will be just a few of the photos.
Plants:
Butterflies:
AT LAST … THE CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL:
And so we started on Friday, 04 October … fairly gently at first with just 3 events covering “Out of the Woods” (how nature can affect mood/mental health) to “Dark Side of the Mind” and ending with a discussion about “Stories of Statelessness” … so gradually easing ourselves into it, because we knew the following day was going to be all out politics – so either really depressing or possibly enlightening! Our day started early (for us) – midday, with the edifying prospect of a discussion entitled “Populism: The Death of Democracy”, which was surprisingly not too ‘heavy’ and much more interesting than at first feared. We then had a more entertaining discussion with James O’Brien and his views and experience of the bizarre twist of events in the previous 12 months. Then we headed to “The Election Generals”, which elicited (as expected) quite a divisive but interesting discussion. Finally, just to ensure that we should try and consider recent events in light of the past, our last event was called “Don’t Look Back in Anger”. I have to admit that having been somewhat concerned by the ‘serious’ nature of our second day, it really wasn’t that bad at all and provided plenty of issues to think about. Because of my fairly pessimistic view of how Saturday was going to turn out, we had deliberately picked a much lighter program for the Sunday, which started with “Who’s Next for the White House” – very enlightening if not a little scary! Then we continued with a discussion called “Life Off-Grid” – lovely idea, but not very practical for me with medical condition + wheelchair. Our day ended with a very pleasant discussion about Tove Jansson (most famous for her Moomin series) with her niece Sophia Jansson about Tove’s life, loves and island refuge.
Now I am honestly having to look back at my on-line calendar for October to remind myself about the various events that we attended, so apart from those that have ‘stuck in my mind’, I think it only fair that I merely relate the number and titles of the events that we attended. On Monday, 07 October, we started off all ‘arty’ with an event entitled “Ways of looking at contemporary art” (I can’t really remember much except that some items I could appreciate the artistic merit and some I just didn’t ‘get’ at all!) Our next event was entitled “Life on the NHS Frontline”, where the panelists were an ex-nurse and an ex-junior doctor both of whom held their own extremely well and really didn’t need any chairperson / facilitator. Now our final event that day was GREAT! It had been placed in far too small a venue, which was packed and everyone enjoyed it – it makes such a difference, when the main speaker is professional and practised – both of which characteristics were true of Dom Joly. The talk was entitled “The Hezbollah Hiking Club”, which obviously was the title of his latest book (now one of the items on my Christmas list from Kevin’s parents). The talk was interesting, funny and the host kept everything moving along smoothly. As I’ve said it was GREAT!
Looking at my on-line calendar, the next day (Tuesday, 08 October) was a really mixed bag and although I remember that everything was really interesting, that’s about it. Our day started with an event entitled “We Need to Talk about Putin”, the next event was entitled “In the shadow of Vesuvius: A Life Of Pliny“, which was fascinating at the time but I can’t really remember any of the important details. And we finished off with an event entitled “Science(ish): Hollywood Wants To Kill You“, which I think (from memory) was understandably weird. On Wednesday (09 October) we only had two events neither of which I can remember in detail, but I am sure that they were both entertaining. Anyway, the titles of the events were “The Knife’s Edge” and “The Art Of Trees“. Thursday, 10 October started with the delivery of our new two seater sofa and matching two chairs in the morning, before we immediately set off for the Literature festival and again the first two items I will just list the titles, because I cannot really remember much detail – “1919–2019: The Irish Century“, “Lucian Freud“. We finished the evening with a highly entertaining discussion with Louis Theroux, which we learnt had SOLD OUT within about the first 3 – 5 minutes of going on sale. As members of the Cheltenham Festivals get a few days head start when booking, this probably meant that the entire audience were members of the Festivals! On Friday, 11 October we saw the following events, which were all good but again I cannot really remember the discussions and so the titles will have to do – “The Best And Worst British Prime Minister?“, “NATO At 70” and “Melanie Reid: The World I Fell Out Of“.
Now as I hope that you can appreciate, we were starting to ‘run out of steam’ and although we had booked for 3 events on the Saturday (12 October) we bowed out of all but the first event– “The Times Debate: Is the Party Over?” with ex-Conservative MP Rory Stewart (now standing as an Independent in the contest for the Mayor of London) and Labour MP Jess Phillips, which ended up as the only event we attended as Kevin was beginning to come down with a cold. The discussion was very civilised and particularly enlightening regarding the resources required to run as an Independent and the restrictions on taking such action and leaving an established political party where you don’t necessarily agree with the leadership, but require the backup of the party structure because of financial responsibilities and the fact that that you feel a better chance of reforming the party from within rather than from the outside. In retrospect, I found this position comforting when facing the reality of “Tactical Voting” in the GE that was announced in November.
So yes, the Cheltenham Literature Festival was a mixture of fun, weird stuff and lots of Politics! As this post has taken so long to compose, I think that I will leave the turmoil of the end of 2019 until my next post – which I will try to do before the New Year!
As I am still trying to catch up on all that’s happened to date, I will miss April 2019 in its entirety – I can’t remember back that far and my calendar doesn’t have anything interesting to note. So, let’s roll on May 2019 …
The first thing of note is that as usual, we attended lots of concerts at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. I know that we really enjoyed it and my calendar lists all the events that we attended (including Soweto Kinch, Abdullah Ibrahim, a double piano act with Nicki Yeoh & Zoe Rahman and Omar Sosa amongst others), but we have no pictures and I have to be honest and admit that I cannot remember the details – except that it was GREAT!
We voted in the European Elections & I saw my MS nurse for my usual six monthly review.
… And then, at the end of May, we went to visit my parents in France for our birthdays (30th May) and to attend “Jazz sous les pommiers“, which just happened to coincide with our birthdays this year. Having looked through their brochure, we couldn’t find anything that particularly inspired, except for 2 concerts that just happened to be scheduled for the early afternoon and evening of 30 May 2019. Both concerts I would categorise more as ‘world music’ than Jazz, particularly the first one – “Le mystère des voix bulgares (Bulgarie)“. This was a real treat, because I had first heard the group many years previously (although their composition has obviously changed over the years).
Le mystère des voix Bulgares (Bulgarie)
Young soloist in beautiful national dress
2 singers linking arms & more national dress
The singing was impressive and as I remembered. It was lovely to see a group obviously enjoying singing together, smiling, glancing at each other and holding hands / linking arms. A truly wonderful experience.
After a drink in the sunshine (augmented by some chips bought by my mother from an adjacent stall), we went for a wheel / walk around Coutances to see what other free events were taking place. Finally, we set off to look for a restaurant that was serving food (dinner) a bit early i.e. about 6 p.m., so that we would be ready for our evening event with Rabih Abou Khalil and his group in the theatre at 7:15 p.m.. This was closer to Jazz, although the musicians came from all over the world (Libya, Portugal, Italy, Turkey and the USA).
We had all thoroughly enjoyed our day out & Kevin and I had a great birthday and came away with two T-shirts to mark the occasion! Now all that was left was for Kevin to drive the one-hour or so journey back to my parent’s house.
We stayed with my parents until 4th June (to try and avoid the forthcoming celebrations scheduled for 6th June to celebrate 75 years since the Normandy landings during the Second World War). I should explain that we were due to catch the ferry from Caen – Portsmouth and as Caen and its environs were of significant importance, we knew that there would be a lot of traffic (even including parades with tanks!)
Display in the main area of the Ferry: Mont St Michel
As usual, our cat Charlie had been royally looked after by his regular visitors from ‘Home Loving Cats’, who had even provided a new and extremely enjoyable toy!
Yes, we celebrated Christmas 2018 (with both our parents on 25 & 26 December) in England – where Christmas is the bigger celebration – and we celebrated New Year 2019 with my parents in France – where New Year is the bigger celebration. However, that is not really the reason for our two centre celebrations, it’s much more mundane than that – the simple reason was that I had a regular medical appointment which just happened to fall in the middle of the two celebrations and the NHS nurse providing the service required no matter what was working during this period and if she was required to work, we felt that it was only right that we should make the effort to attend the appointment.
CHRISTMAS 2018:
Christmas lights (outside)
Christmas stars (upstairs)
All went without a hitch, with my parents arriving from France in the evening of 22 December and departing in the morning of 27 December (the day of my medical appointment), Kevin’s family spending Boxing Day with us all, meaning that we get the chance to use our large table at the rear of our huge living room and here are some photos from our traditional English Christmas.
Christmas lights (indoors)
Christmas tree & presents
NEW YEAR 2019:
And now it was our turn to make the ferry crossing from Portsmouth to my parent’s house in France, which we did on 29 December (giving my parents a couple of days in which to prepare for our arrival – late). This also gave us time to drop off the key with “Home Loving Cats”, who were looking after Charlie whilst we were away (and so the only photos you’ll get during this period are those of Charlie).
New Year also went fairly smoothly, with us eating far too much and as the weather was not good, I have very few photos (i.e. none) to share. We left France for the return journey to the UK on 4 January 2019.
So my last post was all about MY birthday … but what about the cat and things back at home?
Well Tramp is a lucky chappie, because he gets looked after by a nice lady (paid for by us) who pops round each day to fill his food bowl, has a cuddle, plays with him and sets up a 2nd food bowl on an automatic timer for his evening meal. She also sends daily photos to update us on his progress – hence the number of photos that follow. Another advantage of some of these photos is that it gives you an indication of what the inside (and outside) of our house is like – At least from a cat’s point of view. From some of the photos, it looks like we were a little luckier with the weather than Tramp !
Finally, do you remember the photo of the pathetic little herb garden we planted at the end of April ? Let me remind you …
… and this is what we came back to after our holidays !
It appears the weather suited them and now we have no need for further herbs (particularly mint) !
So why did my last post say that I was so busy? Well at the end of May was my (and Kevin’s) birthday and for me it was the big half-century ! Therefore, I wanted to do something to celebrate and what better than to try and recreate my 21st birthday when Kevin and I were at Imperial College in London and I was still a happy go lucky student. Now first: On my 21st birthday Kevin, my parents and I got the overnight ferry to Holland and went to Amsterdam (by train) for an Indonesian rijstafel, returning home on the overnight ferry that evening (well we were students and did have to do things on a tight budget!)
Now of course quite a lot has changed in the intervening 39 yrs – I’ve worked (so have more money), I now use a wheelchair (courtesy of MS) and we have a car. The latter is very important, because trains (that we used all those yrs ago) are a bit more difficult to organise now. However, the ferry still runs from Harwich to the Hook of Holland and with the car we could just drive (Kevin really) from Swindon to Harwich and then from the Hook of Holland to Amsterdam. As the picture shows we managed it, had the aforesaid Indonesian rijstafel and a lot more besides. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your age, my/our birthday falls during the Whitsun holidays. This meant that I was never at school during my birthday, but has the downside that travel and holidays in general are more expensive. It also means that the ferry gets booked up very quickly and so plan A had to change immediately – no disabled cabins available for the overnight ferry. Still, we are older now and a little thing like unavailable cabins wasn’t going to stop us. Plan B – take a sedate drive to Harwich, stay overnight in an accessible room at the ferry port and take the day ferry across to the Hook of Holland (having a meal on the way, of course), then drive (Kevin again) from the Hook of Holland to Amsterdam. This should have been easy, but was made a little more complicated by having an out of date satnav and the Dutch authorities building lots of new roads. Anyway, after a short skid via the outskirts of Rotterdam, we eventually made it to the Mövenpick hotel in Amsterdam and met up with my parents that evening. Oh, that’s another thing that’s changed – my parents now live in France and were driving across from the west of France via Belgium to a different hotel in Amsterdam, reasonably close by. Upon meeting up, my parents confirmed that their trip across France and hotel were great BUT their journey around Antwerp had been awful (not good for us to hear, because Antwerp was the next place we were visiting & planned to stay overnight on our way back to their house in France).
Now, booking a hotel when you have a disability and therefore require an accessible room is a bit more difficult than you may think. I picked the Mövenpick hotel in the centre of Amsterdam, because it had an accessible room & en-suite bathroom. It was more expensive than we would normally pay, but I must admit that the accessible bathroom was very good. The hotel is actually built out in the old dock area, which accounts for our rather noisy and changeable neighbours (see pictures). I think this first photograph (of the view from our bedroom window) needs a little more explaining: As I predominantly sleep on my back now, I no longer seem to be able to achieve a full, uninterrupted 9 hours sleep each night. I tend to wake up, Kevin helps me sit up and I spend the next hour or so reading my Kindle. This particular night, I woke up as usual and sat there reading when (around 4 o’clock in the morning) I vaguely became aware of noises outside. Upon looking out of the window in the semi gloom, I was surprised to see that there appeared to be terraced houses opposite that I hadn’t noticed when we first arrived. I went back to sleep for a couple of hours as normal and when waking for the 2nd time Kevin commented that there was a lot of commotion outside. He opened the curtains properly and this was the view that greeted us – A cruise ship ! So after getting dressed and showered, Kevin immediately went outside to take a better look. Upon returning to me in the room, we had lots of jokes about “Costa” cruises and whether the captain had really intended to park to park his large vessel outside our hotel. Needless to say, once I had showered and dressed too, Kevin took me outside and we immediately noticed that our hotel was right beside the cruise ship terminus. We met my parents at the coffee shop right next door to our hotel, where I had a lovely freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast. My parents didn’t want or need anything having already partaken of a rather large hotel breakfast, which was included in the cost of their hotel. Once all together, we set off into Amsterdam city centre via a bridge over the River and we started to have a look around. Neither of my parents had seen an Indonesian restaurant when they had had a quick look upon their arrival the previous day, but we decided to look around and try to locate the flower market (where of my parents’ friend had said that they had found and Indonesian restaurant) … and on the way, I had an apple pancake (another of my fond memories of Holland from yrs ago). That evening, we had sushi in a weird Japanese-style fast food restaurant I’d noticed on our travels that was wheelchair accessible (unlike lots of the traditional restaurants, which were both narrow, all and had steps up to the door – no change there then!) Anyway, as can be seen from the photograph at the beginning of this post – we did find a lovely, accessible Indonesian restaurant and I got my Indonesian rijstafel. The morning that we were leaving Amsterdam (and my parents) Kevin and I went into a cafe in the Information Centre just opposite the Grand Central Station. The cafe was downstairs, but there was a lift and we decided to stop for a drink and lunch whilst waiting to meet my parents. They arrived and also decided to have a drink/look at the menu, where my mother saw the item “Bitterballen” which she decided to order – another fond food memory that we had enjoyed as a family many yrs ago. (Therefore, completely unintentionally, I had appeared to ‘tick off’ 3 items from my imaginary bucket list.)
Next, Kevin and I made the journey to Antwerp, which as my parents’ had predicted was a nightmare journey – roadworks everywhere! Our hotel was right in the centre of Antwerp and once we had managed to negotiate all the major disruptions, we finally made it to the hotel … and had to have a lie down to recover from what was a comparatively short hop. No pictures of Antwerp, but as you can probably imagine the combination of major reconstruction/building works, removal of almost all dropped curbs and cobbles made our investigations of Antwerp painful for me (in the wheelchair) and extremely tiring for Kevin (trying to manoeuvre the wheelchair over rubble/unmarried pavements etc.) In summary, Antwerp may be lovely in a few yrs time but not at the moment and especially not when trying to get around with a wheelchair or similar. Round 2 finished and onto the round 3, edging ever more slowly towards France.
Round 3 – Mons. Now Mons was lovely and probably had undergone similar building works to Antwerp but a few yrs earlier i.e. a view of what Antwerp may become in a few yrs time. The hotel was lovely and interesting, but again there were lots of cobbles and this time the town was located on a Hill – oh what fun!
And there’s really not much more to say – upon leaving the hotel in Mons, we started on the long drive across France to my parents’ house in Normandy. It had been a fun week away and we were now ready for the final ferry trip home (after a few days recuperating in France) via St. Malo … and yes a bit more food !
The start of 2017 was not really very exciting and there wasn’t much interesting to write about – hence the dearth of new posts.
There were the work tasks: I’m trying to cut my business costs this year and therefore replaced my IP database at the start of January (which included a couple of on-line training sessions in January/February), I met with an old colleague from my previous employer, ostensibly to talk about possible IP protection for some new ideas that he had been tinkering around with, but ended up having a general chat about how the atmosphere has changed as have many of the people. I also did quite a few professional webinars (always good for my CPD).
On the MS/medical front: There were all the usual things – open gym sessions (Monday & Friday), seated yoga (Wednesday), dentist etc., but there were 2 things that did stand out as not being the norm:
1. On the afternoon of 04 January 2017 – we took delivery of my “super duper” assisted bike which Kevin had arranged as my Christmas treat. We are hiring it for 3 months on a trial basis and I’m trying to use it every day. At the end of the 3 months, we will purchase it and the 3 months hire cost will be deducted from the sale price. This just goes to show you how expensive it is!
2. During the last weekend in January, I hosted the “Twitter takeover” on behalf of Shift MS. This might have been quite mundane, but of course in the US there was all the chatter about the election/inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the USA. Fortunately, most of the tweets during my “Twitter takeover” steered well clear of politics!
Unfortunately, this fairly lacklustre spell of progress or rather complete lack of it, gave me the urge to organise several things – another visit with my MP (much shorter and more friendly this time), organising a visit from a carpenter to quote for changes to our stairs and levelling our upper landing and also a visit from a blinds company to quote for installation of electrically controlled blinds in our bedroom. Kevin was NOT pleased, although I have to admit that this flurry of activity was taking place just before my parents were coming to stay with us for a couple of days prior to going on a bell-ringing trip to Devon with a view of their friends from Somerset.
Roll on March: As I’m in bad odour with Kevin anyway, and things still aren’t progressing with the new house, I also arrange for a visit from a landscape gardener to quote for cleaning our block paving area and replacing the paving slabs/edging along the path to our front door. A very nice, young chap (I’m getting to that age when lots of competent adults look ‘young’ to me now) came to visit us, see what was required and provide a quote for the work. My main aim was to get the path to the front door level (making it easier to manoeuvre my wheelchair) and to replace the edging along the path to restrain the gravel between the plants in the adjacent beds, which was spilling onto the path in several places due to accidental hits & bumps from me in the wheelchair. The Gardener said that he could, and would prefer, to do the work before the end of March. In fact, he could start the following week.”Ah, that’s difficult” I said, “because we are off to visit my patents in France next Tuesday and don’t return until 22nd March”. (Mmm, now I’m beginning to appreciate Kevin’s frustration – but I wasn’t going to admit it and he could jolly well sort out arrangements for feeding the cat while we’re away … SULK!) Anyway, the Gardener agreed to start on our return from France and right at the last moment, Kevin organised for a “professional cat sitter” to come in and feed the cat, while we were away. …
AND SO, OFF WE GO TO FRANCE … (Garden photos courtesy of my Dad)
Now my Mum had warned me that on 17 March (St Patrick’s day) they were hosting a celebratory Irish meal and had invited a number of guests – both French and English. We had already seen the Irish flag and bunting as it was ordered on-line and had been delivered to our house a few weeks earlier, and we had been treated to a viewing of their cheap elf T-shirts (picked up in a supermarket during their quick bell-ringing trip to England). The authenticity of the “Irish food” was somewhat dubious, but they had made several attempts to try out the cocktail ‘Black Velvet’ (a mixture of Guinness & Champagne) – now that was sure to go down well in France (!?!) The verdict on the ‘Black Velvet’ was understandably somewhat confused, ranging from “a good way to ruin both Guinness & Champagne” (majority) to “it’s quite nice really” (minority).
I don’t drink much alcohol and definitely avoided the ‘Black Velvet’, but I think the next two photographs go to show what a terrible effect it can have on the photographer (my dad).
All set – before ‘Black Velvet’
I leave it to you to make up your own mind!
Party in full swing – after ‘Black Velvet’
My parents had set up an office for me in their spare, spare bedroom and I did spend a couple of hours each day at my computer doing some work! There was some socialising, relaxing, watching films and shopping too and it did provide a nice break for us humans. And now onto the cat: He seemed to have a pretty relaxed and fun holiday too, being well looked after by the “professional cat sitter” as can be seen from the pictures at the beginning of this post and the photographs to end. We shall definitely be using her again for our next holiday – Birthday celebrations!
bibbysmith 