that old familiar routine

There seems to be an increasing amount of times that I begin to feel (unjustifiably) guilty; at the same time I’m perhaps forgetting many incidents about which I perhaps should have felt guilt. The recent feelings of guilt are invariably related to my (chronic) illness; I can’t help but feel that my inability to socialize, or even far too frequently not being able to go out anywhere at all, places an unfair imposition on my beloved OH.

For the past several weeks I seem to have reverted to an older pattern of routine discomfort. Shatteredness is my routine daily state of being; far too frequently my sluggish emergence from the duvet lair necessitates a further rest after the effort of getting dressed. 

My gradual emergence into the new day, from the nocturnal duvet realm, usually takes place between 10.30 and 11.00am. On a good day, after a reviving intake of caffeine, I’ll go up to the garden pond to feed the fish and, stamina permitting, water the tomato plants in the greenhouse. If it’s a really good day I’ll maybe saunter, stout walking stick enabled, to the neighbourhood parade of shops; other times it will simply be back indoors for a rest.

Unfortunately, at present, I lack the concentration or attention span to settle down to read and enjoy any of the seductive volumes that can be found in abundance chez nous. Where once I enjoyed reading, both for pleasure and study purposes, I now impatiently await those rare intervals when a sufficiency of both physical and emotional stamina is available.

A variability in times it takes for sundry muscular, joint, and other aches and searing pains to set in (and drain my stamina reserves) means that my body imposes a need for further laying down rest any time from early to late afternoon. By this time I’ve often had to don wrist and elbow supports to help ease quite severe discomfort in my limbs. When ma belle is at home she easily recognizes when such rest is needed as pallor suddenly sets in.

By 9.00pm, or shortly thereafter, acute tiredness envelops me, and aided by a dose of amitriptylene and some tramadol to ease pain and muscular spasms, I head up the wooden stairs in anticipation (rarely, if ever, fulfilled) of a good nights sleep!

passively full days

Though still, of necessity, doing little that requires any degree of exertion it's amazing how full my days seem to be! My noblest intention of posting more regularly (to the blog) remains just that, an intention; perhaps I could blame the paucity of posts on not wanting to bore my readers but, that doesn't seem to have bothered me in the past. Perhaps the fact that my days seem to be 'full' is quite simply a reflection of my somewhat restricted stamina levels; had I a greater reserve of stamina then I would be able to fit much more into my days.

Never having been much of a sun worshipper, it's really quite amazing how much time I've been spending sat out in the garden during the current prolonged spell of dry sunshiny days. Parasols are regularly erected at the table in front of the bench, immediately behind our living room, and beside the love seat near the pond, to offer a degree of protection to this fair-skinned beauty. Even whilst sat beneath the parasol's shade I wear a hat, taking full heed of the advice I received when the basal cell carcinoma was diagnosed and excised  from my back last year. The shade, proferrred by the parasols, seems to camoflauge my presence for the garden's avian* visitors which have quite frequently settled themselves down in much closer proximity to this human interloper.

An irritable, intensely frustrating, spastic colon has ensured that I rarely ventured far from house and garden in recent days, my most distant jaunt being to 'Open Church' at St Marks - approximately 10 minutes walk - for coffee and a chat. Even that little stroll could prove a little more difficult now that my back trouble (related to the herniated disc?) has flared up again; hopefully a combination of tramadol, ibuprofen gel, and a firm back support will keep that little problem in check. Fortunately, I seem to have regained an ability to concentrate on doing a bit of reading, in the past few days having read Tony Benn's 'Letters to my Grandchildren' and the first couple of hundred pages of Manning Marable's 'Malcolm X a Life of Reinvention'.

Recent bank holidays have meant that I have been blessed with a few more days basking in the company of ma belle Helen, life could hardly be better.

* more on the birds in the garden on my beloved's blog


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earlier today I posted a couple of snapshots 'must be a tea garden!'  to Mal's Picturebox