Fed up

My life is ebbing away during lockdown! I don’t get out of the house and I cannot get into our garden, wheelchairs and steps don’t mix. The getting down them would be relatively fast but the getting back up there lies the problem. Or more correctly there lies me at the bottom of the steps!! Today our garden has been alive with birds, baby’s begging for their mums to feed them other recently fledged trying to learn how to land on the feeders or even on the clothesline before trying to negotiate the scary feeders. Lockdown has stopped us leaving the confines of the house but today I am fed up, I hope tomorrow is a better day 👍

Geraniums are first to bloom

Geraniums have started to bloom 

Time flies

It has been ten days since I last posted so first off an update on the plant’s,  Heather is watering everything daily and sometimes twice a day. The Geraniums have flowers and some Livingstone Daisies are  poking their heads above the compost. So all good in the flower department. Today has been a mixed bag. I woke up feeling naff and have slept most of the day waking only for fluids and chats to Hev. Now 10:45 pm and Heather wants to settle down for the night I am wide awake. So goodnight world let’s hope for a better tomorrow 👌

Wheelchair gardening

I have to be hoisted in and out of the wheelchair as my legs and most of my body no longer works, S when it comes to wheelchair gardening I actually cannot do any. But Heather does the graft and I do the buying and when the purchases arrive I supervise. Today Heather planted out three Geraniums that arrived by post yesterday. eBay is my go to place after being ripped off by a big plant supplier the plants they sent out as mature plugs were so tiny the must have been terrified to be out alone in the big wide world and to be honest out of 108 plugs less than half survived. The eBay purchases have all come from individual sellers who love plants and who have taken photos of the very plants I have received. Today’s ones had flower buds and we could make out two of the colours. We have three more arriving soon all a deep red from another eBay seller. 

The plug plant escapade was a learning experience and future purchases will be eBay based or from garden centre visits when I feel brave enough to leave the safety of home. The way it’s looking I won’t be going out until the new year, notice I am not specifying which new year! So Heather is the muscle and I am the brains of our gardening escapades. Here’s to all the eBay suppliers of flowers.👍

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose

I love Janis Joplin

Another MS hug or inflammatory levels raised again

I had a difficult evening yesterday and my body reacts badly to stress but today has been a total wipeout.  I don’t normally sleep more than six hours but last night I managed nine. Heather woke me and I drank a cuppa took my tablets spurned the offer of breakfast and went straight back to sleep. Proper heavy sleep, only waking when disturbed by the Asda delivery man or Heather waking me to drink some water or in the case of one of my cups of tea spill it making an awful mess. 

I have just a few weeks ago finished antibiotics for high levels on my inflammatory markers whatever they are! I was sleeping eighteen hours a day. The question is do I shout or do I wait and see?  I have shouted to earl before and it was nothing and I have waited and been hospitalised so what do I do? 

Hospital appointment and masks

I had an appointment to go to Canterbury hospital today. My catheter has been blocking a lot recently and it was decided to change size, the district nurse tried but the bigger one would not go into the smaller hole. I should explain that I have a supra-pubic catheter. I changed from urethral due to amount of infections and must say I am very pleased and now get lots less infections.  We arrived at the hospital early because there was so little traffic and when we went in we were wearing masks, the nurses asked would we like them to mask up, YES!  They explained from the 15th everyone will have to wear masks but until then they would do what the patient is comfortable. Personally I can’t see why wait eight days do it now. Well that was another day for me with Multiple Sclerosis. I hope your day has been okay. I’m going back to sleep I came to bed when I got home and am still tired, MS wears me out doing nothing so a trip to hospital has exhausted me!

Multiple sclerosis bites back

I have been in bed today. I did get up just before five but the rest of the day I have been asleep. Heather has been coming into me at regular intervals to ensure that I am drinking plenty of water but in seconds of settling down I was asleep again. I think that it is my MS biting back at me for feeling okay for the last couple of days. I haven’t done anything that has worn me out I just think it is my MS.

The power of the image.

I try and steer clear of politics especially worldwide politics but with so many conflicts around the world it is hard not to take some sort of interest in what is happening. Some conflict are so long-standing no one really knows what caused them. Others are smash and grab situations where one war lord wants what another has got. I read about forty five deaths in a machete attack on a neighbouring town part of a long standing disagreement. All of those deaths were family members they were mums and dads daughters and sons. People. Just like you and me.
What got me to think about these conflicts was an individual photo. Yes it was an award winning photo but it just goes to show the power of the image! The photo I was so taken by was the winner of this years ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ an image taken by Yasuyoshi  Chiba and titled Straight Voice. That image has haunted me for a few weeks.

It’s of a young man praying or reciting poetry whilst lit by the light from phones. He is surrounded by   others each with a look of desperation. It is a colour photo taken in almost pitch darkness and whilst being shot in colour it has the essence of a black and white image!  That image speaks to me! I know I am an emotional wreck, I even cry at adverts on TV but I don’t feel emotional over the image I feel connected with the young man. He is crying out for change in his and everyone around him situation. I can relate to that. As I write this the whole world is in lockdown due to corvid19 and I feel the photo could be a metaphor to the feelings of the world. Each person in the world is suffering in some way due to the virus and I feel helpless. This image portrays that feeling more than my feeble attempt to write down how I feel.
CLICK HERE to see the photo 

Save the world, the Coronavirus legacy.

Well maybe not all of it! But if Coronavirus Lockdown has taught us anything it is to be different. The same old same old ain’t necessarily the future same old. Things are going to be different. People have discovered that going to the office everyday just because that is how we have always done it that way don’t cut it now. Things are gonna change and in my mind that can only be a good thing. Just think of the fuel saving. Twenty percent less if you stay at home just for one day. I know things like season tickets for public transport muddy the water but if you drive in everyday the savings could be huge. The green brigade will be able to tell you the benefit to less pollution I am just a back of a fag packet calculations type of guy. I dream big, we have all seen the lack of pollution on television, pictures taken from space showing cities normally covered in smog are now smog free. That could be our future but people really have to want a different future. A greener cleaner future. One that actually cuts pollution, one that plans for a better tomorrow.

I don’t know the answers, I am not even sure I know the questions. But if we really think about the future we can make the past just that. A thing of the past.