… quiet day today where I haven’t done all that much at all.
But it’s not been without interest. The physiotherapist has had me walking up and down the stairs here this afternoon, but leading with my left foot down and right leg up rather than the other way around. At first it was quite difficult but it didn’t take long to ease off. That’s one of the new exercises that I have to do now with effect from today.
And to my surprise, these exercises seem to be working. I was able to get into the bath for my shower and out again without too many problems. It’s still not 100% of course – far from it – but a vast improvement on the almost-impossible struggle that I had the first time that I tried it 6 weeks ago.
But as I said, it’s going to be a long, hard road.
Getting out of bed this morning was a long, hard road. Not helped in the least by still being up and about at 00:30 this morning. And so I was a little late getting out of bed this morning.
Plenty of time to go off on my travels last night though. I was watching a film on the TV. It was a medieval film about a castle on the coast of England somewhere on the south-east where the knights in armour were occupying it. There was a danger of an invasion so the Lord was rallying his troops to do they best they could in case this invasion took place. One of the visiting knights had fallen in love with a girl whose father was a labourer in the castle. He spent a lot of time talking to her. All of a sudden this castle moved to the borders of Wales. From a nearby church tower someoe fired an arrow into the castle. That was a signal for a siege of this castle to begin. Just then my brother came in. He’d been out somewhere. He wasn’t impressed at all with this film and started to fool around while it was on. He was firing a bow and arrow around the house while I was trying to watch the film. I told him to clear off but he took no notice. Then my parents came in. This wouldn’t be the kind of film that would interest them at all so I could see the TV being changed over to another channel and that would be that once they established themselves in the living room
A little later I was in my father’s place of work. He was working in the office. I’d been doing a few things and I had something to do that required me sitting at a desk. I went to sit on the empty desk next to him but found that there was a young boy already there doing some homework. He’d dated his homework the 12th of whatever month. I thought “he’s started early because that’s not for another week”. I suddenly realised that it was today. I was running so far behind. I tried to squeeze in at this table too but my father told me not to disturb the boy. I did my best to fit in. My father started to talk to me but I had a lot of problems trying to understand what he said. He said that he had a transistor radio from someone. at first I couldn’t work out who but then I realised the shop that he had been to. I said “that’s because you’ve spent a load of money I suppose”. He thought that that was what it might be. Then he started to talk about a night club he used to visit years ago which I thought was in Winsford. He was telling me that someone had asked him for directions to go there, some taxi operator. I couldn’t remember exactly where it was. Then he told me that it wasn’t in Winsford anyway. By this time my father and this boy had worked their way down this table to the end so there was no room for me to sit there. I was then trying to work out where I was going to sit down to do my work because there didn’t seem to be any other empty space.
I had also been round to a former friend’s – someone who has a connection with Zero – for some reason or other. He was talking about the bread that he’d made. It was really light and fluffy. He said that he’d left the flour to soak before he’d actually used it so I was intrigued. He took me into the kitchen to show me some dough that he had soaking in some plastic bags. For some unknown reason I came away from there with a brush cutter. To drive past to his house we’d driven from the north end of Stoke on Trent past Port Vale’s football ground then past Stoke City’s football ground to his house. I mentioned some nickname to do with the club. He was surprised to hear me say this. He didn’t realise that I knew what it was. For some reason he lent me his brush cutter. I couldn’t think of what to do with it. There was some fuel in it. I carried it away. One of the reasons why I’d gone round there – I found that not one of my cars had an MoT or tax these days. I’d had 2 run out last year and suddenly remembered that the 3rd ran out in March but it was now May. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do about that. I had this brush cutter and was back at the station. There was some kind of competition about getting on the last train. I had to cross over the bridge from the platform where I was up the steps and across the top to the other side then back down the other side and then come back again after a train has passed through. I headed that way towards the bridge, checked the signals to show that they were on green which meant that the train wasn’t coming for a while and crossed over. Then I was thinking about crossing back to catch this other train but I thought that that would drop me off in Altrincham and it would be a very long walk at some silly time of night back home where it’s much easier to catch the 1st train and forget about the train that’s going to be bringing me back. I ended up walking into the town from there to get on a bus but thought that with this brush cutter with fuel in it are they going to let me go on the bus?
So here we go again. Plenty of opportunities for my family to come along again and stick their oars into whatever I’m trying to do, and then being so close to Zero but yet so far. How could I get so close to you and still feel so far away as TOM PETTY SANG.
And while we’re on the subject – “One day you belonged to me. Next day I just wouldn’t know”. What does that remind you of? Yes, one day I’ll write those missing notes for those three days right at the beginning of September 2019.
So having dealt with the issues of the dictaphone I sat down and selected the music for the next batch of radio programmes. I’m working on the radio stuff on Thursday as well as Monday until I’ve build up my library of six months’ work.
Then I paired off the music for the next two programmes and made a start on writing the notes for them. It worked so well on Monday doing it like this that I thought that I’d try it again, although I’m hoping that it won’t be another 04:00 start.
In the middle of all of this I went for a shower. I have to be all clean and tidy and smell nice for the physiotherapist. And as I said, climbing into the bath for a shower was nothing like a difficult as it was when I first tried it after coming out of hospital
And climbing up and down the stairs, I bumped into a neighbour – the one who helped me so much in my plans to involve myself in that apartment downstairs. Having a mole on the inside track on the Residents’ Committee of the building enabled me to take several short-cuts that I would otherwise have been unwilling to take.
As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I’m convinced that Rosemary installed a camera in this apartment when she came to visit. I’d hardly sat down at my desk after the physiotherapist had gone and she called me up. We had another one of our marathon chats as she prepares for her Asian adventure in a couple of weeks’ time.
And how I wish that my health had been better otherwise I might have been tempted to climb aboard the ‘plane with her.
Tea tonight was a burger on a bun with chips and a simple lettuce and tomato salad with vegan mayonnaise. It was delicious and I even now can still taste the mustard that I spread on the bun. Chips today means no chips tomorrow so I was wondering what to have for tea. And then I remembered the vegan sausage rolls in the freezer. They will go nicely with some baked potatoes.
So right now I’m going to bed. I might have a decent sleep tonight if I’m lucky, and then I have plenty of work to do. But my day will finish off with a visit to the specialist for my EMG – the electric tests on the nerves on my legs. And then I’ll have some news. Last time when I was there, it didn’t sound all that optimistic and the tests that he carried out seemed to confirm it. But who knows – something good might come of it.
