A number of people who read the blog can't get their head around the name "Notoplip" because they are reading it as "Not-op-lip". Well I have now spelled it out and it is self-explanatory that his he is lacking in the upper lip department. As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, I am not particularly gifted in this area either hence my suggestion that I might get two for one collagen implants for his birthday.
I have know Notoplip since 1991. It was at this time that the last of my single friends "Eddie Cruise" decided to go on an around the world trip. I was invited to go with him, but travelling has never really interested me. It's not something that I dislike and I enjoy holidays and different environments but I have never really had the urge to go on voyages of exploration. I suppose that I have always believed that there is plenty that you can discover right under you nose. One of my greatest discoveries took place when looking at my feet and a paving stone in my favourite Ibiza night club. I pondered for moment whilst on my five month visit and decided that I missed Kitten and needed to be with her and that was the precursor to marriage and two children. Of course, I didn't go home to her but simply conducted a weekend trip to old blighty and exported her to Ibiza
Continuing with the Eddie Cruise" theme; Eddie Cruise" is so called because when we were in our twenties women regularly said to him "you look like Eddie Kidd" or "you look like Tom Cruise". Naturally, he was extremely humble and never thought to mention this to anyone else.
So, Eddie Cruise was the last of the line of friends such as Ibanez Man, Car Crash, Mark the Shark and Lights On who had travelled from my school days or my late teenage days of drinking by the Kingston Riverside and had settled down or had moved on.
Eddie Cruise suggested that I take his job working in a night club bar when he left and that is when I met Notoplip and co. Notoplip had been lodging at Taggot's (Flying Squad) and Eddie Cruise had been there too. The common bond with these chaps was football, all being players.
It was through meeting Notoplip and Taggot that I developed a circle of friends that I would socialise with for many years and all bar one of who I still see regularly. There were five of us who used to cause mayhem wherever we went and Kitten described us as being like "a circus coming to town". She, like many others who had made similar observations, was describing us from the vantage point of being behind a bar in which we were drinking.
There is Notoplip, Billy The Fish, DA Decorator and Bum Nose as well as myself Swordfish.
I could write realms (as could the News of the World) on our exploits, but it is suffice to say that these friends have proved to be worth their weight in gold to me throughout my 20's and 30's up until and including these difficult days.
I am still in touch with my old friends and I have met many other great friends along the way. The bulk of my socialising though revolves around the friends I met in my twenties and Notoplip and Sushi have obviously been particularly close at hand during recent times.
It is always reassuring that when you have had a very difficult day like I have today that there is someone who is going to ring you up and take the piss out of you whilst also understanding your position. It is not a role that a mother or a wife can assume.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
A Difficult Twenty Four Hours
Apart from having a very disappointed Mrs Swordfish (aka Kitten), who was all glammed up and ready for the Strictly Christmas special it has also been a physically difficult twenty four hours.
The milkshake compounds that I have been using for two months are suddenly not agreeing with me and the last day has not been nice. Unsurprisingly I have stopped using them and am now consuming a few gentle calories.
It is like going back to square one. I have gradually improved due to the stent over the last couple of weeks but now I barely feel better than when I was in hospital. I was due in work today to talk with my Managing Director, Sam the Eagle and the Chief Executive Officer about the route forward work wise, but I had to cancel. In my condition and with the snow there was no way of making it in and these conversations are best held in person rather than conference call. I was also due to meet with the ex-managing director before he resumes his "life of Reilly" as a ski instructor in Europe later this week.
At these times it is important to take it as easy as possible and I have retired to my specially kitted out bedroom with TV on and iPhone at hand. I remember when my grandfather was bedridden and my nan had intercoms for him to communicate his needs. My sister and I used to wait all day for the opportunity to use the intercoms and also to take his food through to him. Just substitute mobile phones for intercoms!
The milkshake compounds that I have been using for two months are suddenly not agreeing with me and the last day has not been nice. Unsurprisingly I have stopped using them and am now consuming a few gentle calories.
It is like going back to square one. I have gradually improved due to the stent over the last couple of weeks but now I barely feel better than when I was in hospital. I was due in work today to talk with my Managing Director, Sam the Eagle and the Chief Executive Officer about the route forward work wise, but I had to cancel. In my condition and with the snow there was no way of making it in and these conversations are best held in person rather than conference call. I was also due to meet with the ex-managing director before he resumes his "life of Reilly" as a ski instructor in Europe later this week.
At these times it is important to take it as easy as possible and I have retired to my specially kitted out bedroom with TV on and iPhone at hand. I remember when my grandfather was bedridden and my nan had intercoms for him to communicate his needs. My sister and I used to wait all day for the opportunity to use the intercoms and also to take his food through to him. Just substitute mobile phones for intercoms!
Monday, 29 November 2010
The Empire Strikes Back
I was busy getting ready for the Strictly Come Dancing trip when this disease demonstrated capably why it is called the "Big C".
It is a gastric cancer that I have at the junction of the stomach at the oesophagus and the stomach. Problems at the upper end with food are common place, but not worth describing in detail everyday because it would make the blog unreadable.
Today, the disease mounted a double pronged attack on me a quarter of an hour before I was due to leave and that was that. I spent the next two hours recovering through sleep and I missed both the opportunity to greet Brucie with a "Good game, good game" and also the opportunity to tell Gavin Henson to stop being a "big Jessie" and concentrate on working to getting the Wales rugby jersey on again.
My thanks to Mr and Mrs Paul the Banker for the opportunity and I am just sorry that I wasn't able to take it.
Living with this disease is a day by day existence where you are constantly striving to keep your balance on a tightrope. You never know when an injudicious hand will reach out and shake you off and you don't know what the damage will be each time you fall.
It is a gastric cancer that I have at the junction of the stomach at the oesophagus and the stomach. Problems at the upper end with food are common place, but not worth describing in detail everyday because it would make the blog unreadable.
Today, the disease mounted a double pronged attack on me a quarter of an hour before I was due to leave and that was that. I spent the next two hours recovering through sleep and I missed both the opportunity to greet Brucie with a "Good game, good game" and also the opportunity to tell Gavin Henson to stop being a "big Jessie" and concentrate on working to getting the Wales rugby jersey on again.
My thanks to Mr and Mrs Paul the Banker for the opportunity and I am just sorry that I wasn't able to take it.
Living with this disease is a day by day existence where you are constantly striving to keep your balance on a tightrope. You never know when an injudicious hand will reach out and shake you off and you don't know what the damage will be each time you fall.
Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special and the Barclays Board
"Paul the Banker" and his good lady wife were due to attend the recording of the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special this evening, but the inclement weather has deterred them from making the journey.
Paul has very generously offered the tickets mine and Kitten's way and so Kitten is in for a treat this evening.
I have attended a few television recording sessions before but never with Kitten. We will be making our way up to White City for about 5:00pm.
It has been very noticeable over the last couple of weeks that there have been more people on the blog and especially that they are not shy in using the comments facility. That is because I chose to widen the circulation of the blog beyond my immediate family and friends to the sole Internet forum that I participate in.
The Internet forum is the Interactive Investor forum and is a financial website. Although, I have not met these people in the flesh, I have been posting on the forum for three and a half years and so have built up a good understanding with many of them over this time. A few have even been aware of and have been following the blog since close to its inception, Barcap, Tas Devil is Back and Secret Squirrel being amongst them.
Many thanks to Mr and Mrs Paul the Banker for this evening (there will be a full match report to come) and many thanks to all the board members for their kind messages and words of support.
Paul has very generously offered the tickets mine and Kitten's way and so Kitten is in for a treat this evening.
I have attended a few television recording sessions before but never with Kitten. We will be making our way up to White City for about 5:00pm.
It has been very noticeable over the last couple of weeks that there have been more people on the blog and especially that they are not shy in using the comments facility. That is because I chose to widen the circulation of the blog beyond my immediate family and friends to the sole Internet forum that I participate in.
The Internet forum is the Interactive Investor forum and is a financial website. Although, I have not met these people in the flesh, I have been posting on the forum for three and a half years and so have built up a good understanding with many of them over this time. A few have even been aware of and have been following the blog since close to its inception, Barcap, Tas Devil is Back and Secret Squirrel being amongst them.
Many thanks to Mr and Mrs Paul the Banker for this evening (there will be a full match report to come) and many thanks to all the board members for their kind messages and words of support.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
The Italian Hairdresser
It is certainly good to have a lie in today with both of the children on sleepovers. A good dose of oramorph before bed time ensured that I only woke once and did not fully awake from the morning misty haze that morphine invokes from the pool of dreams.
So, I have a short novel to start reading (recommended by RigelBB) and the Sunday times before settling down to the Newcastle vs Chelsea match on the box.
I will be joined by the Italian Hairdresser who is one of my few friends to be substantially my junior.
I met the Italian Hairdresser when he was 16 and sweeping floors and making cups fo coffee in Toni and Guy Kingston-upon-Thames. He is 10 years (less a couple of weeks) younger than me. We share similar extrovert personalites; for those who like their astrology we are both Leo sun signs. Over the years we have also had a common bond through house music.
For many years we were acquaintances who got on well whenever we bumped into each other, but there became an extra dimension to our relationship when I went to Ibiza for the summer in 2000. I knew that the hairdresser loved his clubbing and partying. At the time I would have been 35 and him 25. The big night / day in Ibiza for me would be to go to the Manumission party on the Monday night / Tuesday morning and then onto the Space Terrace for the after party all day Tuesday and then onto the party at Bora Bora beach before retiring to my good friend ("HehHehHeh's") bar into the early hours of Wednesday morning.
As I was getting ready at about 11pm on the Monday night I would always ring the hairdresser. He didn't work Monday's (most hairdressers work Saturdays) so I would always catch him as he was preparing to go to bed knowing that his weekend was coming to an end. In other words I would stick the sounds on in my Ibicencan flat and start whooping on about how I was well rested and getting ready to go and party for the next thirty or so hours.
You can imagine that this was like sticking a stake through a vampire's heart. Not much fun for him but superb banter from me. Of course, I could always ring him from Ses Salinas beach on the Wednesday when I was recovering in 35 degree Celsius heat with Sangria and Calamari if I felt like reopening the wound.
On one particular week I rang his phone and a stranger answered. He told me that he had the hairdresser's phone and the hairdresser had his and that the Hairdresser was in Ibiza with girlfriend in tow. To this day I do not know what the phone thing was all about, but I rang the number he gave me and sure enough Italian hairdresser 1 and Italian hairdresser 2 were both staying close by.
It was one of those occasions when all roads lead to Ibiza because this time overlapped with a week that my parents had come out to see me and the "Boxer" was also out with his stag party. The stag party had the full complement of mates including "Notoplip", "Sound Man" and "Big Boss", so it really was a full on week.
Unfortunately most of the best tales from the next few days are unprintable in a public forum without being self-incriminating but it is enough to say that we had an excellent few days and the Hairdresser and I lay down bonds that have bridged the age gap from now until this day.
Whilst I cannot share most of the humour, I was able to look after him and his now wife to make sure that they had a great holiday. This was made easier by the fact that I had my convertible BMW with me out there so I went with them to my favourite beaches and clubs.
We had one particularly afternoon on a beach, which goes down in folklore and not for all the right reasons. We pitched up on Ses Salinas beach at the swankiest of the four beach bars "Malibu". Getting your footwear right in a hot climate is very important even though I do not generally suffer from smelly feet. I had taken to wearing plastic soled beach shoes and had been unware of their odour despite having been warned on an earlier visit by Kitten. The hairdressers had been enquiring about a bad smell for quite a while before pin-pointing my shoes as the culprits. We were in fits of laughter because they really were bad and it was quite amazing that I had not noticed that I had been walking around in smelly shoes for quite some time. No amount of rinsing them in the sea would cure them and we resorted to burying them in the sand until we left.
Perhaps the most unusual event of our chilled out day (apparently the hairdressers' last before returning home) was one of those coincidences that you wonder where they come from. The hairdresser and I had been sharing some of our favourite meditteranean "rolled up cigarettes" and were engaging our imaginations. The Malibu beach bar is not the best beach bar on the beach because it veers towards the pretentious whereas the Jockey Club further down captures the vibe better.
You see waiters coming down onto the beach and delivery drinks to the punters with their tea-towels over their upstretched arms that are carrying the drinks. The sea is littered power boats, yachts and some of them extremely grandiose. Consider the Lady Moura that was a frequent visitor to the beach whilst I was out there.
As Italian hairdresser and I were engaging our imaginations we noticed a motorised dingy at the water's edge and we speculated that it would be amazing if one of the waiter's came down from the Malibu resplendent with drinks and tea-towel, started the motor and hot-footed it out ot one of the nearby power-boats or yachts. No sooner had we finished our sentence than a waiter came out of the bar, down to the water's edge, started the motor and hot-footed it out to a nearby powerboat.
I had been to the beach several times and had not seen this happen before, probably because it was early season. It came to be a common sight in the height of the summer but, at the time, Italian Hairdresser and I were quite taken aback. So much so that we both gazed intently at our "rolled up cigarette", simultaneously threw our gaze to the waiter in the dinghy, back to the "rolled up cigaretted" then back to each others incredulous faces and then burst out laughing. "Good sheeeeet, huh".
Of course this was Italian Hairdressers' penultimate day, or so he claimed. Suffice to say that hairdresser's must have scissors because they are not the sharpest tools in the box themselves (I jest). It had turned out that their apartments were only a couple of hundred metres from where I was staying and, no sooner had I dropped them off than Italian Hairdresser was ringing me and showing his tender years by his blind panic.
"Swordfish" they have chucked all of our stuff out of the apartment in black bags. It took me a couple of minutes to calm him down and a couple of minutes to work out that he was returning to London that day and had not checked out of his room. He had simply assumed a date based on number of nights and had not counted the first, nor checked his tickets. He was still trying to justify his position despite the weight of evidence being obvious to the most supportive of bystanders.
A bit more cool headedness and I worked out that there was still and hour plus until his flight. I mulle dhtis over whilst he panicked that the airport transport had already left. So, hood down and plastic bags unpacked into suitcases we headed over the San Jose hills to Eivissa airport where a 30 minute pre-flight arrival is good enough for those in the know.
As, I said the best stories I cannot print here but that gives some insight into how I know Italian man and his good lady wife.
So, I have a short novel to start reading (recommended by RigelBB) and the Sunday times before settling down to the Newcastle vs Chelsea match on the box.
I will be joined by the Italian Hairdresser who is one of my few friends to be substantially my junior.
I met the Italian Hairdresser when he was 16 and sweeping floors and making cups fo coffee in Toni and Guy Kingston-upon-Thames. He is 10 years (less a couple of weeks) younger than me. We share similar extrovert personalites; for those who like their astrology we are both Leo sun signs. Over the years we have also had a common bond through house music.
For many years we were acquaintances who got on well whenever we bumped into each other, but there became an extra dimension to our relationship when I went to Ibiza for the summer in 2000. I knew that the hairdresser loved his clubbing and partying. At the time I would have been 35 and him 25. The big night / day in Ibiza for me would be to go to the Manumission party on the Monday night / Tuesday morning and then onto the Space Terrace for the after party all day Tuesday and then onto the party at Bora Bora beach before retiring to my good friend ("HehHehHeh's") bar into the early hours of Wednesday morning.
As I was getting ready at about 11pm on the Monday night I would always ring the hairdresser. He didn't work Monday's (most hairdressers work Saturdays) so I would always catch him as he was preparing to go to bed knowing that his weekend was coming to an end. In other words I would stick the sounds on in my Ibicencan flat and start whooping on about how I was well rested and getting ready to go and party for the next thirty or so hours.
You can imagine that this was like sticking a stake through a vampire's heart. Not much fun for him but superb banter from me. Of course, I could always ring him from Ses Salinas beach on the Wednesday when I was recovering in 35 degree Celsius heat with Sangria and Calamari if I felt like reopening the wound.
On one particular week I rang his phone and a stranger answered. He told me that he had the hairdresser's phone and the hairdresser had his and that the Hairdresser was in Ibiza with girlfriend in tow. To this day I do not know what the phone thing was all about, but I rang the number he gave me and sure enough Italian hairdresser 1 and Italian hairdresser 2 were both staying close by.
It was one of those occasions when all roads lead to Ibiza because this time overlapped with a week that my parents had come out to see me and the "Boxer" was also out with his stag party. The stag party had the full complement of mates including "Notoplip", "Sound Man" and "Big Boss", so it really was a full on week.
Unfortunately most of the best tales from the next few days are unprintable in a public forum without being self-incriminating but it is enough to say that we had an excellent few days and the Hairdresser and I lay down bonds that have bridged the age gap from now until this day.
Whilst I cannot share most of the humour, I was able to look after him and his now wife to make sure that they had a great holiday. This was made easier by the fact that I had my convertible BMW with me out there so I went with them to my favourite beaches and clubs.
We had one particularly afternoon on a beach, which goes down in folklore and not for all the right reasons. We pitched up on Ses Salinas beach at the swankiest of the four beach bars "Malibu". Getting your footwear right in a hot climate is very important even though I do not generally suffer from smelly feet. I had taken to wearing plastic soled beach shoes and had been unware of their odour despite having been warned on an earlier visit by Kitten. The hairdressers had been enquiring about a bad smell for quite a while before pin-pointing my shoes as the culprits. We were in fits of laughter because they really were bad and it was quite amazing that I had not noticed that I had been walking around in smelly shoes for quite some time. No amount of rinsing them in the sea would cure them and we resorted to burying them in the sand until we left.
Perhaps the most unusual event of our chilled out day (apparently the hairdressers' last before returning home) was one of those coincidences that you wonder where they come from. The hairdresser and I had been sharing some of our favourite meditteranean "rolled up cigarettes" and were engaging our imaginations. The Malibu beach bar is not the best beach bar on the beach because it veers towards the pretentious whereas the Jockey Club further down captures the vibe better.
You see waiters coming down onto the beach and delivery drinks to the punters with their tea-towels over their upstretched arms that are carrying the drinks. The sea is littered power boats, yachts and some of them extremely grandiose. Consider the Lady Moura that was a frequent visitor to the beach whilst I was out there.
As Italian hairdresser and I were engaging our imaginations we noticed a motorised dingy at the water's edge and we speculated that it would be amazing if one of the waiter's came down from the Malibu resplendent with drinks and tea-towel, started the motor and hot-footed it out ot one of the nearby power-boats or yachts. No sooner had we finished our sentence than a waiter came out of the bar, down to the water's edge, started the motor and hot-footed it out to a nearby powerboat.
I had been to the beach several times and had not seen this happen before, probably because it was early season. It came to be a common sight in the height of the summer but, at the time, Italian Hairdresser and I were quite taken aback. So much so that we both gazed intently at our "rolled up cigarette", simultaneously threw our gaze to the waiter in the dinghy, back to the "rolled up cigaretted" then back to each others incredulous faces and then burst out laughing. "Good sheeeeet, huh".
Of course this was Italian Hairdressers' penultimate day, or so he claimed. Suffice to say that hairdresser's must have scissors because they are not the sharpest tools in the box themselves (I jest). It had turned out that their apartments were only a couple of hundred metres from where I was staying and, no sooner had I dropped them off than Italian Hairdresser was ringing me and showing his tender years by his blind panic.
"Swordfish" they have chucked all of our stuff out of the apartment in black bags. It took me a couple of minutes to calm him down and a couple of minutes to work out that he was returning to London that day and had not checked out of his room. He had simply assumed a date based on number of nights and had not counted the first, nor checked his tickets. He was still trying to justify his position despite the weight of evidence being obvious to the most supportive of bystanders.
A bit more cool headedness and I worked out that there was still and hour plus until his flight. I mulle dhtis over whilst he panicked that the airport transport had already left. So, hood down and plastic bags unpacked into suitcases we headed over the San Jose hills to Eivissa airport where a 30 minute pre-flight arrival is good enough for those in the know.
As, I said the best stories I cannot print here but that gives some insight into how I know Italian man and his good lady wife.
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Mash Up
The wonderful soup of the Crazy Frog has delayed me in attempting something more solid, but tonight was the night.
I had a small plate of very creamy mash before we went out and it travelled fine.
Next stop "mash and mince" again.
The more variety that I get get the better, but it must be said that I already feel much much better physically than a couple of weeks ago.
I had a small plate of very creamy mash before we went out and it travelled fine.
Next stop "mash and mince" again.
The more variety that I get get the better, but it must be said that I already feel much much better physically than a couple of weeks ago.
London Boulevard
It will be nice to do something normal tonight, so I am taking Kitten out on a date to the pictures.
We are going to see the gangster flick London Boulevard starring Ray Winstone at Wimbledon and I hasten to add that the choice of film is hers; I am not complaining though.
Chances to go out without the children are few and far between so we will be sure to make the most of it.
We are going to see the gangster flick London Boulevard starring Ray Winstone at Wimbledon and I hasten to add that the choice of film is hers; I am not complaining though.
Chances to go out without the children are few and far between so we will be sure to make the most of it.
Feeling Good
I was able to get myself ready to go to watch Huffty play football this morning, such are the benefits of the stent and eating being so much easier. He was pleased to win 4-2 and also to receive man of the match.
Boogle is out of the frame this weekend as she has not one but two sleepovers. One last night and another tonight at Lance Corporal's house with her daughter Pocahontas. My daughter is growing up! I have not been able to be as involved as I would like with Boogle recently because our shared activity was ice-skating. I will have to wait for further improvement or think of another channel in which to spend real quality time with my daughter. The obvious one is to get her busy on my DJ decks as she is always hankering after some time on them.
Huffty, also has a sleepover at the Crazy Frog's house tonight with her son Frog Leg 1. This means that Kitten and I have the evening to ourselves. I am not sure what we will doing yet, but I guess we cannot do anything until after the Wales vs New Zealand rugby match :-)
It will be lovely to have a free evening together though, so I will see what floats Kitten's boat.
Meanwhile it is time to turn our thoughts to Christmas. We haven't done so far for obvious reasons but there isn't any reason why this one can't be a really good one. Something tells me that the children are going to be spoilt rotten!
Boogle is out of the frame this weekend as she has not one but two sleepovers. One last night and another tonight at Lance Corporal's house with her daughter Pocahontas. My daughter is growing up! I have not been able to be as involved as I would like with Boogle recently because our shared activity was ice-skating. I will have to wait for further improvement or think of another channel in which to spend real quality time with my daughter. The obvious one is to get her busy on my DJ decks as she is always hankering after some time on them.
Huffty, also has a sleepover at the Crazy Frog's house tonight with her son Frog Leg 1. This means that Kitten and I have the evening to ourselves. I am not sure what we will doing yet, but I guess we cannot do anything until after the Wales vs New Zealand rugby match :-)
It will be lovely to have a free evening together though, so I will see what floats Kitten's boat.
Meanwhile it is time to turn our thoughts to Christmas. We haven't done so far for obvious reasons but there isn't any reason why this one can't be a really good one. Something tells me that the children are going to be spoilt rotten!
Love is the Chosen Currency
Apart from coming to terms with the physical challenges of the last week the most important item on the agenda has been to determine how we move forward.
What is so difficult is that although I know that my disease has progressed substantially over the last short period I do not know how long I will be here for and what degree of physical deterioriation there will be and over what time period.
I have to be optimistic but I also have to get my house in order and front load everything because one has to assume that my I will be physically better at the beginning of the journey.
Many people have asked me about things that I would like to do and I am being perfectly honest when I say that there isn't really much that I want to do. The reason for this is that the things that have always been special to me are shared and often spontaneous moments rather than planned experiences. However, as I am feeling better each day I realise that planning and sharing experiences will be very worthwhile.
I have always been a loving and caring person, but that isn't necessarily immediately noticeable. Anger and perceived injustice have always been huge driving forces for me and without them I would be completely bone idle. Of course, I have worked to smooth my personality as I have got older but I have always been someone who reflects and listens but also someone who appears to be very opinionated and preferring to talk when in the moment.
The point of this ramble is that I somehow feel released from my life-long personality challenges. I know that everyone is on my side and the generosity of spirit is palpable. The comments on the blog (from those not frightened of computers), the phone calls, text messages, emails and visits all make me feel warm and keep my spirit high. The currency that I am dealing in is no longer the struggle of the provider and striver it now becomes the gift of being able to share my love.
I have been busying myself all week getting my head around the logistics of the future and there will be both work and financial conversations taking place next week. If you told me for definite that I had three months to live then I would only consider working in a capacity to help hand over my responsibilities, but otherwise there needs to be a balance struck. After all we have young children who benefit from the routine of going to school each day and the general stability that family life affords them.
If there are things that I would like to do for myself then they are simple things like going to a concert or show at the Albert Hall. I view places like the Albert Hall as places of great spirit and I like the fact that it is circular. To witness something in the round there would be the ultimate. Similarly, I have not been to the Globe theatre, but that will have to wait until April as it is now closed for the winter. When considering other more exotic things then my physical condition must also be brought into consideration. I am still in reasonable nick but heavy physical exercise is out of the question.
Then it comes to the main agenda, which is family and friends. The focus must start with children, Kitten and the parents and then my close family and close friends. As my children are still young it is less important to me to focus on events than it is to leave them with a feeling of who I am. Whilst I say that events are less important they are still pivotal and a holiday would be top of most peoples' agenda. There is perhaps a limit to what I can do because being abroad and being caught by the condition would be a bad place to be. The travelling would be very difficult too, especially as we are now in the winter months which narrows the options if looking for sun. There are other options to consider though.
What I would really like to do is to live a relaxed but active life and it is far easier to be relaxed when the veil of hope provided by medical treatment has been removed. In fact I wish that I had been able to live with such a mindset throughout my adult life. I guess that we all struggle and some level though and that must be considered healthy, otherwise we are not motivated to move forward.
My personality will not change substantially, it is the skin which I have grown into. The humour will be as dark and acerbic as usual, but the love that I feel for life and for people can now take a more prominent position on the stage. I fail to see any negatives in that.
What is so difficult is that although I know that my disease has progressed substantially over the last short period I do not know how long I will be here for and what degree of physical deterioriation there will be and over what time period.
I have to be optimistic but I also have to get my house in order and front load everything because one has to assume that my I will be physically better at the beginning of the journey.
Many people have asked me about things that I would like to do and I am being perfectly honest when I say that there isn't really much that I want to do. The reason for this is that the things that have always been special to me are shared and often spontaneous moments rather than planned experiences. However, as I am feeling better each day I realise that planning and sharing experiences will be very worthwhile.
I have always been a loving and caring person, but that isn't necessarily immediately noticeable. Anger and perceived injustice have always been huge driving forces for me and without them I would be completely bone idle. Of course, I have worked to smooth my personality as I have got older but I have always been someone who reflects and listens but also someone who appears to be very opinionated and preferring to talk when in the moment.
The point of this ramble is that I somehow feel released from my life-long personality challenges. I know that everyone is on my side and the generosity of spirit is palpable. The comments on the blog (from those not frightened of computers), the phone calls, text messages, emails and visits all make me feel warm and keep my spirit high. The currency that I am dealing in is no longer the struggle of the provider and striver it now becomes the gift of being able to share my love.
I have been busying myself all week getting my head around the logistics of the future and there will be both work and financial conversations taking place next week. If you told me for definite that I had three months to live then I would only consider working in a capacity to help hand over my responsibilities, but otherwise there needs to be a balance struck. After all we have young children who benefit from the routine of going to school each day and the general stability that family life affords them.
If there are things that I would like to do for myself then they are simple things like going to a concert or show at the Albert Hall. I view places like the Albert Hall as places of great spirit and I like the fact that it is circular. To witness something in the round there would be the ultimate. Similarly, I have not been to the Globe theatre, but that will have to wait until April as it is now closed for the winter. When considering other more exotic things then my physical condition must also be brought into consideration. I am still in reasonable nick but heavy physical exercise is out of the question.
Then it comes to the main agenda, which is family and friends. The focus must start with children, Kitten and the parents and then my close family and close friends. As my children are still young it is less important to me to focus on events than it is to leave them with a feeling of who I am. Whilst I say that events are less important they are still pivotal and a holiday would be top of most peoples' agenda. There is perhaps a limit to what I can do because being abroad and being caught by the condition would be a bad place to be. The travelling would be very difficult too, especially as we are now in the winter months which narrows the options if looking for sun. There are other options to consider though.
What I would really like to do is to live a relaxed but active life and it is far easier to be relaxed when the veil of hope provided by medical treatment has been removed. In fact I wish that I had been able to live with such a mindset throughout my adult life. I guess that we all struggle and some level though and that must be considered healthy, otherwise we are not motivated to move forward.
My personality will not change substantially, it is the skin which I have grown into. The humour will be as dark and acerbic as usual, but the love that I feel for life and for people can now take a more prominent position on the stage. I fail to see any negatives in that.
Friday, 26 November 2010
Autumnal Walk With Kitten
Today is a crisp but beautifully sunny day, so I suggested to Kitten that we take a walk in Richmond Park.
The Pen Ponds is my favourite area for walking and it brings the best out of the autumn gold.
There was ice on the ponds today and you can see the birds standing upon it.
The Pen Ponds is my favourite area for walking and it brings the best out of the autumn gold.
There was ice on the ponds today and you can see the birds standing upon it.
At this point my attitude is very much subject to a paradigm shift. When I went on this walk a few months earlier I was totally wrapped up in the mindset of getting myself better. Now I feel more relaxed and able to enjoy the walk, the day and Kitten's company for what it is. Only the pain from the stent throws a bit of a shadow over the light but that is all manageable.
There was lots to watch today including a charge of deer across the park the speed at which I don't think I have witnessed before. My camera is not good enough to the capture the detail, so I didn't even bother trying. However, the view is worth showing for its own sake as you look to the Sheen gate of the park from the Pen Ponds.
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