Reporting back

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As promised, a brief update. Yes, I got my pacemaker, and all has gone according to plan. My pulse has resumed its regular “tick-tock” rhythm instead of skipping the “tock” and although my blood pressure is still on a seesaw, it does seem to be stabilising. I had a pleasant hour’s snooze with a local anaesthetic, so there was no scratchy dry throat from intubation and no fogginess on waking up. Happily, also no pain of any kind in spite of impressive purple patches that have developed over the last few days, but bruising was to be expected. I was sent home after a couple of hours, and apart from fatigue I’m experiencing no noticeable after-effects.

Hopefully, life will soon be back to normal and I’ll learn to adapt. So I’m very grateful for all your prayers and “good vibes” as well as the practical and moral support from my Dear Daughter and Son-in-Law. Thank the Lord!

New Year Surprise

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A room with a view …

Happy New Year, everyone! I had hoped to reach 800 posts by the end of 2025, but only got as far as 794 – the last six should have been easy enough, but circumstances conspired against me. Never mind!

This greeting comes to you from my room in the Cantonal Hospital, a very nice room, on the fifth floor (sixth for US readers) with a beautiful panoramic view.

What am I doing here? you ask. As usual, it’s due to something totally unexpected. During a routine examination by my GP just before Christmas, he noticed that my blood pressure was high and asked me to keep track of it for a week between Christmas and New Year. What struck me during this week was that my blood pressure was up and down, but my pulse remained extremely low, only half what it ought to be. Incidentally, I also caught flu on Christmas Day, which may or may not be relevant. On New Year’s Eve, I reported back to my GP who frowned, did an ECG, and announced that I probably need a pacemaker. Then he sent me straight to the Emergency dept at the hospital, and they have kept me in.

Now, I did write a post six months ago about not boring people with long tales of ailments, so I’ll not go into my health issues any more than that. Suffice it to say that I’m here under observation. The 1st and 2nd January are public holidays and then it’s the weekend, so that means five days “winter break” until the medical team is back in full force on Monday, and can decide what to do with me. That gives me time to get used to the idea of getting a pacemaker, and also allows my body to recover from the flu, as apparently that might be having an impact. Thank goodness, 3 months after my fall, my back is also now almost pain-free, so that is no longer a problem. I also have to stop taking certain meds that might be interfering with my blood pressure and pulse.

I really feel a fraud. Impostor syndrome, almost! I’m almost over the flu, just a tiny cough left (which doesn’t hurt) and I’m a bit tired, but I don’t feel poorly. I’m spending as much time out of bed during the day as I can, because if I behave like an invalid, I’ll start feeling like an invalid and that’s a downward spiral. I prefer to regard this as a long weekend break in a luxury hotel.

So let me tell you about my “holiday” here. This is a super new hospital, state of the art, totally renovated and restored just a couple of years ago. I spent a week here in November 2023 when I had my mastectomy, and have been coming since then to physiotherapy and fitness training, so I’m quite familiar with the place.

My luxery room (before they brought a second bed in)

The rooms are bright and airy, with huge picture windows overlooking the surrounding scenery of hills and forests, and each room accommodates two beds so there’s no overcrowding. Even at night, there’s never more than one person snoring, coughing, moaning, ranting and farting – a huge advantage over other hospitals I’ve been in. I have one of the latest designs in hospital beds with a remote control that allows me to raise and lower, tilt and turn it, and bend each section of the mattress at different angles (fun to play with). A small screen above the bed allows me to access all kinds of apps and programs, including TV, radio, phone, audiobooks etc (with headphones so I don’t disturb my room mate) as well as selecting my menus for lunch and dinner, even specifying the time I wish to eat, by clicking on photos of mouth-watering dishes. And when it appears, the food actually does look like the photo! Kudos to the chef and kitchen team!

Tender beef medallion with potato and pea purée and cherry tomatoes

My Dear Daughter and Son-in-Law came on New Year’s Eve with a bottle of non-alcoholic bubby (tasted almost like the real thing, all the same!) and we toasted 2026.

Happy New Year!

Polite, friendly staff appear and disappear at regular intervals, attending to all my needs, never rushed or reluctant, but cheerful and more than helpful – and not expecting a tip! Unable to have a shower because of half a dozen electrodes attached like leeches to my chest plus a saline drip that I have to trail about with me everywhere, I was particularly pleased when the nurse sat me down in our en-suite bathroom and washed my hair for me.  

My doctors listen to me, explain anything I ask about, and admit that for the moment they are puzzled about my condition – no pretence at omniscience! Whatever they finally decide, I trust they will have considered all options and will do whatever is best for me.

So –  although this isn’t the post I thought I would be writing at the start of 2026, I felt I should let my faithful followers know what’s going on here. Wish me luck, say a prayer for me, or send me healing vibes – I am grateful for whatever positive energy can be directed my way. Personally, I’m hanging onto the verse that popped up in my e-mails as Verse of the Year on the Bible App, immediately after seeing my GP, which is Isaiah 41:10.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Can’t get better than that!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

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My Christmas card list gets shorter every year, mainly because I can now greet most people electronically, but also because the number of friends and family dwindles as time goes by.  Also, both the cost of cards and postage have risen beyond my means, especially to loved ones abroad. It would cost me about 500 Swiss francs to send around 100 cards nowadays! Cui bono? I think I have managed to send greetings one way or another to most of those who matter to me, but if I have missed anyone please forgive me – it wasn’t on purpose, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Time (and my failing memory) has beaten me yet again.

This has got me reminiscing about the Yule of my youth, when my parents and I sent and received at least a hundred cards each year, which were put up on every possible surface and hung on strings on the walls. This ln turn led on to a whole host of memories of Christmases past, especially in the 1940’s and ‘50’s, when things were a lot different from now.

As a small child I looked forward to visiting Father Christmas at Birmingham’s leading department store, Lewis’s – now long gone, alas. This involved an hour’s bus ride and an endless queue up the many flights of stairs to the grotto where the great man sat, ready to hear what we children wanted for Christmas. In those long-gone days, nobody had thought of offering to take a photo with Santa, but we did get a Lucky Dip, in my case almost inevitably a game of Tiddlywinks, which I hated. I always hoped for something – anything!- else. On reflection, maybe all the Lucky Dip presents were Tiddlywinks? In 1944, when I was three and a half, my wish list started with a Spitfire. I didn’t get it.

On Christmas Eve, I hung one of my Dad’s big knee-length fisherman’s stockings up at the foot of my bed. I woke up next morning very early and very excited to find that it had been filled in the night. There was always an apple, an orange, some nuts and a chocolate bar (a great treat, since sweets were rationed), some coloured pencils and a sketch book, and various little novelty toys. I wasn’t allowed to go downstairs until my parents got up, so I’d play with these things for a while as my impatience grew, because I knew there would be more things under the tree downstairs. These always included a Rupert book and a Children’s Annual (presents from my grandparents) and a new winter dress made by my mother, who often stayed up till after midnight on Christmas Eve finishing it off.  I loved these, but there were also surprises: one year a sewing basket (my mother was attending basketry classes at night school), another time a clockwork train that my father played with more than I did, once a wonderful Meccano set (but the tiny nuts and bolts soon got lost, unfortunately. I think my mother was glad when they finally stopped embedding themselves in the rugs.) One Christmas, I got a crystal set, a very primitive radio receiver, which my pal John (a budding electrician) rigged up for me with wires criss-crossing the bedroom. Again, my mother was happy when the novelty wore off, the wires came down, and there was no more risk of being garrotted while vacuuming. And my grandfather once made me a dolls’ cradle, which my daughter later inherited and is now one of her treasures.

When we were long past the age of believing in Father Christmas, between about 10 to 13, my schoolfriends and I would usually go out carol-singing a couple of times in the week before Christmas, hoping to gain a little cash to buy Christmas presents. These were not organised events, but spontaneously agreed among two or three of us in the afternoon at school.

We would meet on a cold, dark evening, wrapped up warm with woolly scarves, socks and gloves, then, armed with a torch (flashlight for my US readers) and our school hymnbook in case we forgot the words, we would go from house to house singing the old traditional carols. Homes were quieter in those days (very few had TV’s), so we didn’t need to knock or ring the bell to announce our arrival: the residents inside could hear us plainly through the badly-insulated front doors and single-glazed windows.

After our hearty rendering of something like Good King Wenceslas (all the verses, taking turns for the King and the Page) followed by O Come All Ye Faithful (sometimes in Latin as well as English), some kind person would open the door and hand us a few pennies, or if they were particularly generous, maybe even a shilling to share among us. There was also an occasional mince pie.

We weren’t the only ones out and about. Sometimes we’d hear a high clear treble further down the road, and recognise one of the boys from the Church choir. Or worse, there would be three or four of them, singing harmonies and descants. Then we’d move to another street, knowing we couldn’t compete with that level of perfection.

Nobody was concerned that we were young girls, out in the dark on our own, unchaperoned, unsupervised. Life was so much simpler then! And although nowadays it’s probably fun to dress up in Victorian costumes and perform well-rehearsed carols – usually for a good cause – with an organised group under a fancy lantern In a prominent spot in town or village, it doesn’t compare with the joy of wandering freely around the neighbourhood, singing whatever we chose – or was requested – to entertain people in their own homes.

As we grew older into our teens and felt too sophisticated to go out carol-singing, we had the opportunity to earn some extra pocket money by spending the week before Christmas working for the post office. We were officially allowed a week off for this in the last three years of school (aged 15-18) and our wages were hard earned! In the 1950’s, greetings cards were cheap and postage was reasonable, so everyone sent cards to everyone they knew, even if they saw one another regularly. As I mentioned above, it wasn’t unusual to send and receive a hundred Christmas cards. This put a huge burden on the post office, so students were welcomed with open arms as extra cheap labour.

The first couple of years my “walk”  was about a mile of streets lined with Victorian terraced houses and the occasional pub. Up one side and down the other. There were two postal deliveries a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and the big sack of Christmas cards for all these homes weighed a ton. By the time I reached the end of the even-numbered houses, I was exhausted. Luckily for me, one of my pals lived close to this turning point and his mother often revived me with a cup of tea before I made my way back up the odd-numbered side. There was a quick visit to a little café for a cup of hot Bovril with three or four of my fellow temporary “posties” before we headed back to the main post office to refill our heavy bags. Many of my customers also took pity on me, and especially on  Christmas Eve would insist on handing me a glass of sherry, port, whiskey or brandy “for the road”. Being only 16 or so, I had little experience of alcohol and didn’t realise the danger of mixing spirits, but these “wee drams” warmed my cold, tired body and cheered me up immensely. It wasn’t just the weight of my load that made me stagger then.

In some of the houses there were dogs, who would bark and seize the cards in their jaws as I pushed them through the letterbox. I felt sorry for the people whose cards were being savaged like this, but there was no alternative way of delivering them. Now and then, there would be a watchdog tied up outside near the door, who regarded the postman as his arch enemy, so that could also mean I had to be super quick at my task. And one house had the main door at the back, so that I had to open the gate and go through a yard guarded by a very conscientious and vicious goose, that chased me every time and managed to give me a very painful peck if I wasn’t fast enough. That bird was only there one year, so presumably it ended up as its owners’ Christmas dinner. Sad, considering how seriously it took its guardian duties.

“Going on the post” was a regular end-of-year feature even when I was at university and home for the Christmas vacation, but by then I had been promoted to the sorting office, which was indoors in a nice warm room, with the chance to sit down now and then. And somebody was always meandering around with a trolley offering free tea and biscuits. Much more pleasant – and slightly better paid!

Which brings me back to the present demise of the Christmas card and the plight of the post office in these days of instant electronic messaging. Tramping up and down in the cold and often wet English Midlands streets may have been as mixed a bag of experiences as the cards in the bag I was lugging, but I did it for several years and on the whole am grateful for it. It was good physical exercise out in the (very) fresh air, and in the run-up to Christmas there was an atmosphere among us all, both permanent and temporary postal employees, that can only be described as “jolly”.

Ah, tempus fugit – but selective recall leaves us with only happy memories of the “Good Old Days” to bore our children and grandchildren with. And with the strains of Silent Night ringing in my ears, I’ll leave you with very best wishes for a truly blessed Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year,.

“God bless us, every one!”

Geriatric Rock’n’Roll

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The sun’s shining, the sky’s blue – so what if it’s freezing, I’m in a nice warm cosy apartment with everything I need at hand, and feeling a lot more like myself nowadays. I nearly said “my old self” but that’s not quite true, I’m feeling a few years younger than I was last time I talked to you and that’s positive!

Yes, I’m still a bit achey and stiff but am following a course of exercises specially devised for the back, run by the physiotherapy department at our local hospital where I was doing strength training for the 18 months preceding my accident in September. There are just three of us in the group, with two lovely young twenty-something lady therapists in charge. The other two “gymnasts” are both German men, one about two metres tall and the other about two metres wide – standing next to each other they represent the number “10” and make me feel very small –  lined up in the mirror we look like 10 ½ ! They’re pleasant chaps, aged about 65 and 75 respectively, and I have secretly nicknamed them Lofty and Humpty-Dumpty.

The therapists are of a generation that does everything to a musical accompaniment, so for the first two sessions they set their phones to some kind of soporific muzak background for us. Yesterday, one of them asked us if we had any musical preferences, and Humpty-Dumpty instantly replied “hard rock”. The girl looked a bit surprised but then asked which artistes. Humpty-Dumpty suggested AC/DC, Lofty and I both nodded, so off we went doing our floor exercises to “Hell’s Bells” which wasn’t exactly the rhythm we needed, but livened us up all the same. Then Lofty asked for Queen and I proposed Led Zeppelin (therapist: “Zeppelin???” – we live not so very far from Friedrichshafen, home to a zeppelin that flies tourists around the Lake Constance area, so the name wasn’t unfamiliar to her), which gave us a slightly easier rhythm with “Stairway to Heaven” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the next few rounds.

Most of the time our conversation is limited to grunts and groans, as we complete the requisite number of crunches, bends and stretches, but yesterday we were the ones educating these GenZ kids in the respective merits of guitarists old enough to be their grandfather such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler et al. Probably they were inwardly rolling their eyes, but sweet-natured as they are, they showed no sign of judgement and listened patiently with polite interest, even asking questions now and then about an era that must seem like ancient history to them. I don’t know what they really thought. However, the three of us left the gym with a spring in our step that wasn’t there when we arrived, and today my back is feeling a little less painful than it was. I hope that also goes for Lofty and Humpty. Roll on next Monday!

Bouncing Back!

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I’ll have to begin with that very British word: SORRY! Sorry for my long absence from this blog. Or maybe you didn’t even notice? Anyway, I think you deserve an apology and an explanation so here goes.

No, I haven’t been away on holiday on a beautiful remote island or up an isolated mountain, and I haven’t been practising living without WIFI. I’ve been feeling a bit sorry for myself, as a matter of fact, and that’s a version of SORRY that I don’t want to share. No pity parties!

At the beginning of September I fell down and landed heavily on my back on some cobblestones. It hurt – but I was very fortunate in that I had friends who drove me to the emergency service at my local hospital where we were joined by my dear, caring and capable granddaughter, who dropped everything and took over responsibility. X-rays showed that no bones were broken, thank goodness, and everything inside was still where it should be, but there was severe internal bruising. The emergency doctor prescribed a huge dose of painkillers.

My daughter was at the other end of the country helping my second granddaughter in a different emergency, so on my arrival back home my son-in-law came over to help. We checked out my first aid box and discovered that most of my medication was around 5 to 15 years out of date, and one particular tube had expired in 1996. My competent granddaughter rolled her eyes then took it all back to the pharmacy and exchanged it for the tablets on the new prescription. Once again, I am very grateful that I now live so close to my family, and they are all very kind and concerned about my welfare.

Another great advantage of having moved here two years ago is that my GP has his practice just one floor down from my apartment, and all I have to do to get there is to step in and out of the lift! Thus when, after about 10 days of taking heavy doses of painkillers, I realized that I was completely doolally, it was no great effort to wander downstairs and ask for help. That was instantly forthcoming, my dose reduced, and brain clarity restored.

However, the pain persists. I have been having physiotherapy twice a week which has helped, and the pain is less widespread, but in the middle of October I caught a debilitating version of flu – possibly Covid, but my test kit had also expired in April 2024 so I didn’t bother testing myself. For the first time in many years, I have been feeling my age! I am still very, very tired and lethargic, spending a lot of time on my couch dozing and watching YouTube, and mostly unable to meet my daily goal of 5,000 steps. In fact, I’m happy if I can reach 2,000. And I have been in no mood to write a blog post.

September and October have whizzed by in a blur of red and golden autumn leaves against a background of blue and grey skies, and suddenly here we are on Armistice Day, the 11th of the 11th at 11 minutes past 11. I’m very sorry to have missed Autumn, which is a gorgeously colourful season here, but today the sun is shining in a clear blue sky and some trees still have a few leaves left. I’m not hopping and skipping about yet, but I am definitely much better than I was eight weeks ago and the trend is upwards. Hopefully by Christmas I’ll be able to touch my toes again. Fingers crossed!

Tribute to the Boss

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WordPress has just reminded me that I started blogging 14 years ago today, and have 790 posts under my belt. That figure surprises me, actually, as I’ve not been posting so often in the last couple of years and have probably lost a lot of my earlier followers as a consequence. However, I shouldn’t let this important day go by without at least a nod to the occasion, and try to bring the total number of posts up to 800 by the end of the year.

So – what do I have to tell you about? A lot of things have been (and still are) happening, both good and bad. That’s life. Among the pleasant ones, a concert held in a tiny café in the picturesque little  town of Stein am Rhein last Friday evening that my friend and I spontaneously decided to attend.

Admittance was free, but of course you can’t sit in a café without buying a drink or something to eat. And the performers passed a hat round, which I noticed contained more notes than coins. In my opinion they deserved whatever takings they got. They certainly rocked the little house!

The Left-handed Boss and Friend were a grey-haired German tribute duo to Bruce Springsteen (aka “The Boss”) and, the singer/guitarist was indeed left-handed. Moreover, he not only had a good, strong Springsteen voice but also sang with a perfect Springsteen accent with no trace of any German. His Friend played the ukulele very skilfully, as well as the cajon when extra percussion was needed. The concert lasted for at least two and a half hours, at which point my friend and I left, but I’m pretty sure the encores went on for at least another half hour, probably until midnight when the Law demands such events cease.

People-watching is always interesting, and this was no exception. Although small – maybe 40 people in total – it was an extremely appreciative audience. Applause was loud and enthusiastic, with clapping, stamping and whistling, and witty exchanges between performers and audience in the short pauses between  songs.

Since the venue was a café, most people were comfortably seated at little tables and it was all very civilised. I had to smile as I realised that the majority of the audience were grey or white haired, and I wondered if they were doing an ID check at the door to ensure that everyone was over 65. After all, The Boss himself is now 75! Doesn’t time fly!

Age is no obstacle to enjoyment, however, and everyone was responding to the beat in some way with head, shoulders, hands, knees and toes.  In the very limited space between the door and the bar, a couple of people were reliving their youth and blissfully dad-dancing. No youngsters there to roll their eyes or sneer, no critical comments, just a warm, cheerful ambiance – and if the spectators sometimes joined in the singing a little off-key, who cared? All in all, a very enjoyable evening.

Anaemic Lunar Eclipse

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My best friend and I were quite excited to hear there was going to be a lunar eclipse on Sunday evening, and exchanged memories of previous such events we had witnessed in the past. We were especially looking forward to seeing the Blood Moon, which I don’t remember ever seeing, but my friend had. We looked up the time the moon was due to rise in our region – around a quarter to 9 pm – and noted that the eclipse would have already begun by then.

At around half-past eight we checked the sky was clear of cloud in the east, and enjoyed a pretty sunset in the west. My friend lives close to the river Rhine, so we decided to go down to the promenade and watch the sky from there. However, trees and buildings restricted our view, so we made our way to the nearby bridge, where we had a beautiful clear view both up and downstream and could savour the end of the sunset while we waited. We were still lingering there as the church clock struck the three-quarter hour. We were obviously looking a bit forlorn, and a young man jogging past us grinned, and declared, “Bad luck, seems he isn’t coming!”

On the other side of the road we noticed a group of people who were also moon-watching. We gazed towards the east, straining our eyes but saw no sign of any moonrise, just the dark outline of the hills merging into the dusky sky as twilight turned to darkness.

Very puzzled, we noticed that most of the other people had moved away. Where was the moon? Were we looking in the wrong direction? Was the performance cancelled? Should we demand our money back?

At that moment, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and found a message from my son-in-law with a photo of the moon already quite some distance above the horizon, which appeared to have been taken from exactly the spot on the bridge where we were standing. The iPhone made it look like daylight, although in reality it was very dark.

How my son-in-law’s iPhone saw the moon

Just as I was responding to this message, the man himself suddenly appeared at my side. He was one of the shadowy, indistinct figures that had been standing on the opposite side of the road, where he had heard and recognised our voices, and was highly amused by our perplexity.  

“Look,” he said, pointing, “There it is!”

Neither my friend nor I have good vision anymore but we looked as hard as we could and saw nothing. Then, a very faint pinpoint of light appeared. It wasn’t a red moon at all, but a black one, invisible against the black sky.

How my iPhone saw the moon

At that moment, the jogger ran back past us and called out with a laugh as he saw my son-in-law, “Oh, he’s made it after all!”

Having finally located the moon, we stood watching and waiting as the Earth’s shadow slowly moved across it revealing a slim crescent of light that grew gradually larger – but was yellow, not even orange and certainly not red.

Very disappointed, we walked back to my friend’s home where I picked up my belongings. As my son-in-law drove me home, I was able to follow the progress of the moon’s return to normal. By the time we arrived, the event was over and there, shining bright  and golden, was a typical harvest moon. It was glorious, but it was most definitely NOT RED.

How it looked on my iPhone after the eclipse

It turned out that the moon had indeed been red, but that was while it was below our horizon. Switzerland is simply too far south. However, if you want some really great pics of what it looked like, you have only to go to Ilze’s website at A Day in the Life of a Latvian Mom https://latvianmom.com/2025/09/08/blood-moon/

Thank you, Ilze! Latvia was obviously the place to be last night!

The next lunar eclipse will be on 31 December 2028. If I’m still around then, I’m going to make sure I’m in a place where I can watch the entire show, even if it means a trip to Latvia!

Oh, yes! Just remembered. I have a post on this site written ten years ago, the last time I saw a lunar eclipse – including a poem you might like. I missed the red phase then, as well, but that was my own fault.

Imagine

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I dreamt that I died and found myself in an idyllic landscape of green meadows, woods, lakes and all the rest of the platitudinous attributes of Paradise. A lanky, longhaired character wearing round nickel glasses greeted me, and to my surprise I recognised John Lennon.

“Hello, la’, how’s it going?” I asked in my best Scouse accent (I am, after all, a linguist and spent three formative years in Liverpool so I can do a pretty convincing imitation of the lingo).

“So-so,” he replied with a yawn. “It’s a bit boring round here.”

“Oh?”

“This is Imagine Land,” he informed me. “You know, ‘imagine there’s no heaven’ and all the rest of it. They put me in charge of it all, since I was the one who came up with the song, and this is where all the people livin’ for today come to live as one.”

“Sounds pretty good to me,” I commented. “All the people livin’ life in peace, sharing all the world.”

“That’s what I thought,” John said with a grimace. “No heaven, no hell, no religion, no ideologies, no possessions, nothing to kill or die for – well, you obviously know my song.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “So what’s the problem? No need for greed or hunger, everybody joined in the brotherhood of man. Sounds perfect.”

“And that’s why you’re here too, mate. You’re a dreamer like I was, so you’re stuck with your dream. It’s OK for the first week, the first month, even the first year. But we’re here for eternity and that’s a heck of a long time. Eternal rest, eternally the same, eternally boring. Nothing new, nothing different, nothing wrong, nothing that needs fixing, nothing challenging. Nothing to look forward to. No purpose.”

He gestured towards the field we were approaching. People were sitting around, picnicking, sunbathing, relaxing.

“No friends either,” he muttered glumly. “Fans, sure – but no real friends, nobody to have real good talks with, no inspiration for new songs, no old mates …”

“Isn’t George here?” I asked, looking around me.

“No, he went to Nirvana. As for Brian, nobody knows what happened to him. And of course there was no way Cynthia was going to spend eternity with me! Maybe when Yoko gets here …” his voice trailed off, and his gaze wandered towards the horizon.

“We’re just a bunch of mindless robots, that’s what we are.”

“But surely,” I cried,” Surely there’s Love, Love, Love – Love is all you need …”

He shot me a world-weary glance.

“Yes, and what’s love, when it comes down to brass tacks? It’s doing things for people you care about, making their lives better, easier, more fun. And how do you do that when everything is already perfect? You can’t improve on perfect. And here, you aren’t allowed anything less than perfect so don’t think you can sabotage anything, just to break the monotony.

Sometimes, I think George was right to go straight to Nirvana. Just between you and me, I’m putting in my application to join him asap.”

He paused a moment and stared into my eyes.

“Of course, I’m responsible for this place, ‘cos I invented it. So if I leave I have to take it with me. See? If my application is accepted, you lot are all coming with me. Into Nothingness. How’s that for a prospect?”

Before I could respond, I woke up. The sun was shining, birds singing, and I wasn’t dead.

Imagine, I thought, just imagine! And maybe  – maybe we should push our imagination a little bit further than the song suggests?

“Don’t talk about your ailments – unless you can offer some positive advice to a fellow-sufferer.”

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How to alienate your friends! Older people frequently bore the socks off those around them with blow by blow accounts of aches and pains and surgeries. I suppose that, having just celebrated my 84th birthday, I have to accept that, although I don’t feel my age,  I am now an old person and should not share boring details of my ailments with all and sundry. However, I hope that what I’m about to tell you might be helpful if, like me, you are obese and have a hyperactive bladder. If not, just skip this post.

Over the past 20-odd years, I’ve consulted my gynaecologist a number of times about this embarrassing weakness, and been prescribed little pink pills, as well as physiotherapy for pelvic floor exercises, which didn’t really make a lot of difference. I had accepted that my condition was unlikely to improve, and continued to rely on my various strategies, such as knowing where all the public loos are in town, and which cafés have toilets accessible without having to pass through the main eating rooms. Never be less than 20 metres from the nearest comfort station!

Then at the beginning of this year, my oncologist-gynaecologist professor (who operated on me in November 2023) decided that I wasn’t a totally lost cause and referred me to the urology department in the local hospital where I discovered that not only are there stronger versions of my little (round) pink pills but also (oval) red ones. Moreover, there are now special treatments available such as Botox injections and electrical stimulation of certain nerves. Botox for the bladder? I had to chuckle at the thought of my bladder losing all its wrinkles! (If a bladder has wrinkles, that is?)

The Urology Professor was very keen on this procedure and explained it to me in more detail than I really cared for, and I was quite adamant that I didn’t fancy having several needles jabbed into my bladder every 6 months or so. But the electrical stimulation? That was less invasive, and I signed up for a series of sessions with the physiotherapist who specialises in bladder problems. Electrodes are attached to my foot and my calf, then an electric current is passed through that produces a tingling like pins and needles. My physiotherapist is a very pleasant lady, and we pass a chatty half hour discussing everything under the sun.  Is it working? I can’t really tell, because at the same time I started on the course of bigger pink and red pills, as well as a special oestrogen cream applied topically (or should I say, bottomly?). Something is helping, anyway.

Both my professors agreed that I fall into the category of obese and should lose about 10kg (22lbs), which isn’t easy, although I am certainly very willing to try. Being so much overweight is not pleasant, particularly when most of the fat is concentrated around what used to be my waist. It appeared that my weight gain since my mastectomy was partly a side-effect of the oestrogen inhibitor I am having to take now to keep my hormones out of mischief. To my horror, both specialists suggested  Ozempic. I said no thank you to that. I know that Noom works, as I had already lost 12 kg with this programme in 2023. Was this a healthy solution? To my mind, certainly preferable to Ozempic.

I decided to go for a second – or rather, third – opinion and consulted another urology professor whom I liked a lot better than my original one. He assured me that it was rather unrealistic to try to lose 10 kg at my age, but he would help me do whatever was feasible, starting – to my initial surprise – with my intestines. Get the digestive system in order, and other organs follow suit!  

I came home with a bag full of medication, and oh boy! Am I glad I’m retired! If I were still working, it would be impossible to keep to the routine now imposed on me. I spread all my pills and potions out on the kitchen counter and arranged them in chronological order of administration. At this point, reading the blurb on each item, I saw that some things need to be taken 2 hours before or after other medication and others separately from particular types of food such as dairy products. I could space out the medication well enough, but where would my meals fit in? Perhaps, indeed, no food at all was the secret to losing weight?  I also realised that I couldn’t rely on my memory with all these different doses at set times, so I made a timetable and to my relief found that I could, after all, squeeze in regular meals. My chart occupied an entire A4 sheet of paper, which I hung in the bathroom for reference.

My best friend shook her head disapprovingly: “Your whole life revolves around your medication, it’s ridiculous!”  But after a couple of weeks, I had got into a routine and to my surprise instantly began shedding the pounds, ounce by ounce. My tummy that had looked as if I was in the final stages of pregnancy deflated to about the beginning of the second trimester, and my summer clothes are starting to fit better. Almost 4 kg (8.8 lbs) have vanished since the beginning of June.

I have also been following Noom again, but I believe that the principal factor in my weight loss is that I start the day with two teaspoonfuls of Psyllium husks with half a litre of water. I had never come across these before, and love their German name: Flohsamenschalen, literally flea seed husks. Nobody so far has been able to explain the connection with fleas to me, but I continue investigating the etymology. They work because they swell up inside the stomach, making it feel full. Also, I have humic acid capsules twice a day, which have to be washed down with a glass of water, and follow every meal with 3 little puffs of a bitter spray to reduce my appetite and which also needs a glass of water to remove the bitter taste. Consequently, I am drinking an awful lot of water!

I tried to combine all this with intermittent fasting, but that was over-ambitious. To counteract the potential loss of muscle rather than excess fat, I am also working out for an hour twice a week (strength training) and aiming to walk as much as possible. I’m told this is also good for warding off osteoporosis.

My over-active bladder began to be less ADHD, but then my blood pressure shot up. The doctor decided to reduce the little red pill from 50mg to 25mg and my blood pressure returned to normal.

My friend isn’t entirely wrong about my life being focussed on my meds and my health. At this moment, I’m keeping track of

  1. my blood pressure that has to be measured 3 times at 2 minute intervals morning and evening over a period of four days,
  2. urination/fluid intake during 24 hours over 2 days,
  3. steps taken each day (goal: 5,000, current average: 6,000 according to the Health app on my iPhone)
  4. weight (Noom charts this)
  5. daily food and drink (Noom analyses the calorific content of meals to ensure a balanced diet).

All this makes me feel a bit like a guinea-pig in a lab, but this is only a temporary state of affairs until my weight stabilises and my bladder behaves itself properly. Based on the results so far, I am optimistic.

My apologies to those of you who find this long-winded and too personal. It isn’t always in good taste to talk of the digestive system, as I discovered when I had my colostomy (see my blog posts from October 2012 to December 2014). But for anyone reading this who is overweight and has an over-active bladder, it might be useful and encourage you to go for treatment. The proof of the pudding is in the eating – to use an appropriate analogy!

Granny’s Boasting Book

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Granny’s Boasting Book is filling up fast – with 3 granddaughters and 6 great-grandkids, there’s lots to chuckle at and to be proud of. I try not to be boring in conversation among senior citizens, and to follow the adage of “One illness, one grandchild, per person”. Anyone over 60 will understand!

But I am bursting with pride at the achievements of my 13-year-old great-granddaughter, Mireille, an enterprising and industrious young lady (not surprising, she takes after her mother, my eldest granddaughter, in that respect). She has a lifelong passion for horses, and surprised her parents a few years ago by announcing that they would see little of her during the summer holidays, as she had arranged to spend most of her time mucking out and grooming the horses at the local stable in exchange for riding lessons. In 2019, she progressed to doing voltige (equestrian vaulting with acrobatics on the back of a trotting horse) which occupied all her spare time for a couple of years, and then, having acquired her own pony, is now making a name for herself in local show-jumping events. On Sunday 1 June she won the Pony-and-Dog event at the Longines CSIO St Gallen, which means something in  Switzerland where it is the official international show-jumping tournament. https://www.csio.ch/en/index.html

Last Saturday, she was competing in an event at an equestrian centre only two kilometres from my home, so I decided to attend and watch in person. The competition began at 7.30 am, far too early for me, especially in view of the fact that I was going to have to walk the two kilometres to the venue, but the second round was to start around 9, and since she had number 17, she would be doing her stuff at about 10 o’clock. That’s doable, I thought, as I googled directions to the place: a nice walk through the woods and fields, then on quiet country roads – pretty straightforward. Estimated time: 26 min. At my walking speed, that means more like 40 minutes.

I left home at 9 am. My phone showed me not only the route on the map, but also gave details like “150m, turn left onto X street, 200m turn right, cross bridge, turn left onto path through the woods…” and there were even little arrows pointing left and right for people such as me who sometimes get confused. All went perfectly until 9.30, when I came to a T-junction. From the map, the equestrian centre appeared to be over to the right, but my directions clearly stated “Turn left at the roundabout”.

The area I was in is frequently used by the military for their exercises and manoeuvres, so sometimes certain areas are closed to the public for their own safety. Perhaps that was the case here, I thought. I put my finger on the map in an attempt to enlarge it, and must have touched something I shouldn’t. The whole screen went black. I was unable to do anything about it, as I swiped and pressed and tried to switch it off and then on again. All to no avail. I couldn’t even call my granddaughter to check which way to go because I couldn’t see anything on the screen.

I hesitated a moment, then decided that as the last instruction had been to turn left and I had seen “turn right” below that, I would be obedient. Off I went. Twenty minutes later it was pretty obvious that I was not where I ought to be, and time was against me. I hadn’t seen a soul during the whole of my trek. I prayed fervently that I wouldn’t have walked all this way only to miss my girl’s performance and at that moment two middle-aged ladies came jogging towards me. I stopped them, asked where the centre was, and was told I had to retrace my steps back to the point where my phone had betrayed me, and where I should have turned right.

I explained why I really wanted to be there by 10 o’clock, and one of them immediately replied that they had finished their jog, her car was very close by and she would drive me there! Wow, I thought, the Lord has sent me an angel! We hurried to the car, and five minutes later I was at the equestrian centre. I rushed as fast as I could towards the show-jumping arena just in time to see my great-granddaughter walking her pony around the circuit. A cry of “Granny!” made me look round, and there was her little sister racing towards me. “Mireille is next,” she told me, “Come on, Papa is over there!” I murmured another little prayer of thanksgiving. I had arrived just in time to greet my grandson-in-law and watch what I had come for – which took less than five minutes. All the same, I was  very happy to see the live performance. Mireille wasn’t placed in this round so the family – who had been up since four in the morning – were all tired and decided to go home. She had come fourth in the first round and won a prize, and there was a blue rosette for Esmeralda, her pony.

IHugs and kisses all round, then my grandson-in-law drove me home. The ride took five minutes. But I had been very blessed, and also accomplished my target step count for the day! Oh, and yes – my grandson-in-law also fixed my phone.