Catnaps

Who needs a bed, when the stairs will do? My cat is very strange. When she was a kitten, I bought her a proper cat bed. She refused to sleep in it. Instead, she has chosen to sleep all over the house in different places, changing location every few weeks or so, as the fancy takes her. Sometimes she can be found in a chair; sometimes under the coffee table; sometimes on my bed; sometimes on the guest bed; sometimes on top of a handbag or a pair of shoes (she has a real shoe fetish); sometimes in the corner of a room; or sometimes on the stairs. I suppose she gets fed up with the same old view, when she wakes up or nods off, so just changes her location for a different outlook. If she has not been in the habit of sleeping on the stairs for a while, it can be a rude shock to my system, when I go down the stairs in the dark and suddenly find a hairy body draped on one step (usually the one below the top step)! One of these days, it'll be MY body lying at the bottom of the stairs, because I haven't seen her in time!

Liver and Bacon

I don't know if anyone saw this story in the press last week, but it jumped out at me. A study by the British Liver Trust says that Britain is on course to be the European capital of liver disease because of the twin effects of alcohol and obesity. Our death rate from liver disease already exceeds that of France, Italy and Spain and will soon soar past Germany's. Britons are also dying a lot younger from liver diseases than they were 20 years ago, the average age being 59 compared with 79 from heart disease. Of course in my own experience, Greg died of liver disease and was 60, so no surprises there.

What is perhaps surprising is that the study suggests that obesity will be the main cause of liver disease in this country overtaking alcohol. Furthermore, we are the only major European country where deaths from liver disease are on the rise. Another statistic is that liver disease is the biggest cause of premature death for women and second only to heart attacks for men. A sobering thought (pardon the pun).

I am not a teetotaller. I enjoy the occasional drink as much as the next person, but I have never seen the sense in getting so hammered I am not in control of my actions or cannot remember what I did. I also enjoy my food but try to eat a balanced diet (no, not a bar of chocolate in each hand, silly) with the very occasional temptation of something oozing in pastry, sugar and cream. My Dad used to have a saying that all the best things in life were either illegal, immoral or fattening. True to a certain extent, but we owe it to ourselves to look after our bodies as best we can - life is not a rehearsal. I do so worry about what the young generation are doing to themselves (and of course the strain it will inevitably put on the NHS).

Thanks to our recent Labour government, the licensing laws were relaxed along the lines that if they can control their drinking in mainland Europe, then they can here. Sadly that has not been the case. Pubs now stay open a lot longer than ever before and young people barely out of nappies spill out of clubs and discos at 4 or 5 in the morning hardly able to stand, throwing up on the pavement or on some unsuspecting taxidriver's back seat. Alcohol can now be bought round the clock from supermarkets and petrol stations, as opposed to from off-licences which once upon a time used to only stay open for a few hours in the evening. Youngsters, determined to have a good time and get so plastered they cannot remember what they did the next day, will buy a bottle of spirits to drink at home before they go out, as it is cheaper than buying it once they are out at pubs and clubs. This new generation will graduate to supply the next lot of frightening statistics unless something is done to reverse the trend.

Thanks also to junk food, the post-war generation who sadly often have no idea what a vegetable looks like, are becoming exceedingly overweight. I only have to wander through my local shopping precinct to see bottoms as wide as barn doors (usually stuffed into too small leggings) and with various undulating rings of fat around their middles. The only exercise they get is moving their thumbs deftly over their mobile phone keypads. They often tend to push prams and drag small children behind them who themselves border on the size of miniature sumo wrestlers. Restaurant chains spring up in the high street based on American models with deep-fried salmonella and fries which seems to lure these youngsters in, as if hypnotised. I'm beginning to sound like a sad old crone (which I probably am) but it is worrying to think where it will all end. For all the bad publicity that alcohol and obesity gets, nobody seems to be doing anything productive about it except perhaps Jamie Oliver who at least is trying to make a stand and be a good role model......hopefully other leading celebrities and politicians will also see the light and do something positive to help arrest the trend.

Meanwhile Miss Goody Two-Shoes is off to make a salad and a glass of orange (Chateau Robinsons Low-Sugar) for her supper. Bye!

Off my trolley

The rot has set in.........I had two most definite senior moments today and it's only lunchtime. OMG it's the slippery slope. I've turned sixty and morphed into a little old lady.

First I was at a garden centre and just returning my trolley to the trolley park, when an elderly man asked for my help. He had put a pound coin into the trolley to release it only to find he had put the coin into the wrong trolley (the one behind) and pulled out two joined together. I asked if he had another pound coin - I was going to suggest he insert this in the first trolley, separate the two trolleys and then return the second trolley. Just as he was looking to see if he had another coin, a woman walked past and threw over her shoulder " All you have to do is put both trolleys back, release the coin, then insert it in the first trolley." Derrr. Why didn't I think of that?

Second senior moment came when I called in at the supermarket on the way home. I loaded up the stuff onto the conveyor belt, packed and put the bags onto my supermarket trolley and then got into a complicated conversation with the cashier about school vouchers and how to reclaim some that had not been issued in the past. I then marched off with the trolley full of bags and was almost out of the door, when a very understanding store assistant caught up with me and reminded me I had not yet paid! Beetroot-faced doesn't describe it!

Both incidents involving trolleys...........which is nature's way of saying I am off mine!

Great Day

Today was great for two reasons:

1. We put the "great" back in Great Britain, doing what we do best - selling the brand Britain to the world. Catherine looked elegant; William looked handsome and in love; the Middlestons looked every bit as good as their Royal inlaws (in fact better - what on earth was Beatrice wearing on her head? It looked like she had had a head-to head clash with a stag) ; and the pageantry was the best GB Ltd can deliver. Even the weather, forecast to be dire and thundery, tried its best to shine at the end of the ceremony.

2. I got through another of Greg's birthdays without him, admittedly helped by the distraction of the Royal wedding. He was here in spirit though - he would have been 62 today.

Busy

I am still chasing my tail, trying to get two rooms decorated simultaneously (why oh why did I agree to have two ceilings painted at the same time?) It is not just the decorating per se that is urging me on like a thing possessed, but the desire to get rid of the chaos that ensues from having to empty the contents of two rooms elsewhere all over the house. I am seven-eighths of the way though finishing the kitchen/diner (I still have to scrub away at kitchen cupboard doors to eliminate any hint of tobacco) and hope to tackle the bedroom after Easter. Meanwhile, Kay and I are making a short trip to my mum for Easter. So in my attempts to tidy, reposition furniture and step over crates of belongings all over the place, my blog-reading and writing my own posts have been a bit wayward. Meanwhile a couple of photos..........

View from my lounge window

Waiting for............?

Happy Easter!

Comfortable slippers

I met up with my two best friends yesterday - I have known them for 42 years. We met at university all those years ago. They were studying French and I German and we got on so well we have stayed in touch ever since. We have grown over the intervening years from impoverished students to wives, career women, (in two cases) mothers and (in two cases) widows. We only get to meet about once in six months because our lifestyles and geography of our homes - one in Brighton, one in Hertfordshire and me in London - dictate that, however even that is more often than in the past when busy jobs and growing children demanded more of our time. When we do meet up, it is like an old comfortable pair of slippers that has been missing from our lives. We never tire of things to talk about and slip into conversation as if we had never been apart. To me they are the sisters I never had.

One was 60 in 2009, I reached 60 in November 2010 and yesterday we were celebrating the 60th birthday of the one in Hertfordshire, my bridesmaid and Kay's godmother. We had lunch here - a treat paid for by her husband who was also present. We were wined and dined at this gorgeous venue and lunch lasted for well over two hours. Then we wandered around St Pancras International Station taking in all the changes that have been made here over recent years. It is of course getting ready to be the Gateway to the Olympic Games and here is a picture to prove it.

St Pancras Station is a really magnificent example of Victorian architecture and well worth a visit on its own, let alone the adjacent British Library which we also visited for late afternoon tea while we watched the commuters scrurrying home at end of their working day.

So thank you, my friends, for a truly wonderful day together. I throughly enjoyed it.

Mothers' Day

Kay is 200 miles away revising for an end-of-term exam this week, so I had intended to spend Mothers' Day on my own just bumbling about doing whatever took my fancy. Maybe a long lie-in, followed by a special unusual breakfast, then maybe watching wall-to-wall TV (which is unusual for me), a long relaxing bath, a bit of TLC. But Fate had other plans.

Last week, I had shortlisted three painters to inspect my kitchen/diner and quote me a price for just painting the ceiling, obliterating the nicotine stains. To be honest, I was happy with the first one I saw but then felt I had to go through the charade of seeing the other two just in case they were even better than the first (but they weren't). So I rang the first one again on Saturday lunchtime to hire him. He knocked me off my stool by saying he would turn up on Tuesday. (When he had called to look at the job, I had stupidly mentioned to him that I might also want my bedroom ceiling doing too at some stage, although there was no urgency and some time after Easter would be fine for that). However, when I rang him to hire him, he said he would prefer to do both ceilings on Tuesday as opposed to having to allocate two half-days to do the two jobs separately. As I have been waiting since November for the job to be done by the guy that let me down last week, I did not want to let this opportunity go, so I feebly agreed.

Mothers' Day therefore saw me climbing up step ladders in both kitchen AND bedroom to get all the pictures down, ornaments off tops of cupboards and floor-length curtains down too. Because of the layout of my house, there is nowhere to put away all this stuff which doesn't involve carrying things up or down at least one flight of stairs, so it has been exhausting. These are the two rooms of the house I use the most, so there are more things to remove than in any other room and the disruption is huge. I also have to find somewhere else in the house to sleep while the bedroom is out of bounds.

So much for a quiet Mothers' Day. I did end up with a relaxing bath at the close of the day, simply because I looked a dirty miserable wretch by the end of it all. And to my horror, when I took all the pictures off, this was the state of the disgusting kitchen/diner wall as a result of years of Greg's heavy smoking. (I hate to think what my lungs look like on the inside), but hopefully within a few weeks, I shall get round to doing the walls myself and it will all look a lot different. My blog may be a little quiet for a while, but I'll try to get round to yours as and when I can!

Oh and by the way, it's Snoopy's 12th birthday today.

Workmen, anniversaries and alcohol

The painter I mentioned in my last post has stood me up. He has been stringing me along since November promising he would come to paint my kitchen ceiling when he had a spare minute and now he has admitted he has too many big jobs on (he is subcontracted to someone else to fit kitchens, bathrooms and conservatories) and just cannot squeeze me in. So Tuesday saw me high and dry searching for someone else. I only stuck with him, because he came recommended by a neighbour, but really how much damage can someone do painting a ceiling? (I may regret saying that). So I have been searching through the local paper, local telephone directory ,Which Local and also something called mybuilder.com. I didn't have much expectation from the latter but within a few hours of my posting my project on the site, I had about 7 replies and they are still coming in, so well worth a try! I phoned quite few of those selected from the four sources above and one pleasant chap came to look at the job yesterday. I was very impressed and I may well hire him, as he can fit the job in next week. His prices were very reasonable too for an oil-based undercoat to cover the nicotine stains and three coats of emulsion over that. He does a lot of work for Harley Street and The University of London (apparently) so hopefully I have picked a good'un. Another painter quoted three times what he was asking.It pays to get several quotes.I've got another one turning up in a few minutes.

This week saw another painful first anniverary - that of Greg's funeral - so that is all the firsts out of the way now and I can get on with real life and hopefully more positive thoughts now. As time goes by, I find I am less angry about the whole situation and more saddened that Greg is missing out on Kay's successes and even major world news events such as in Japan and Libya (which of course was his job). I can often be heard muttering under my breath "Oh Greg, if only you could see this or hear that". I see others in my Al-Anon group a year or so in time behind what I was going though and I despair for what lies ahead for them too. But I am appreciating more and more that alcoholism is a mental illness, just like anorexia, where the sufferer has little or no control over it and where only a few can manage to pull away from it.

I feel I want to do something to make a difference, but I don't know yet what and how. I don't think higher alcohol prices are the answer. In Greg's case, he was clinically dependent on alcohol, so would buy it whatever the price. That is why he took out such huge loans before he died to fund it. Prohibition is not the answer, as real addicts would still find a way of obtaining it and it would not be fair on the majority who can sensibly limit their drinking. What about the idea of ID cards which you would need to show to buy a drink in a pub or a bottle in a shop. These could be removed and cancelled if alcohol got you into trouble with the police or you ended up in hospital with an obvious drink addiction, much like a driving licence if you transgress the law of the road or a doctor thinks you unfit to drive. But I suppose there would soon be people out there who would fake these documents. Possibly lobbying government to return to set licensing hours and stopping supermarkets selling alcohol might help, as I am sure the ease of obtaining alcohol is a major factor in the rise of alcoholism these days............ certainly in the case of younger people who go out on the lash till 4am or later.

What do you think?

Changes for the better and worst

Following on from my last "poor me" post, I decided to keep busy by making headway with the decorating. My next job was to be the kitchen/diner which is at the very base of my Jacob's ladder of a staircase. The problem is, I have been waiting months for a painter to get the kitchen ceiling painted, before I paint the rest of the room. I hate painting ceilings with a passion. I think it has to do with putting your arms above your head and cricking your neck to see what you are doing. I love painting walls..... and woodwork...... all very therapeutic. But ceilings..........no, no, no. One of my neighbours recommended two fabulous painters who had done work for her. I approached them both back in September. One, a reputable family firm, took a month to send me a quote and when I said he could go ahead with the work, he then avoided all my calls and wouldn't give me a start date. I tried his mobile and home number several times over a period of two weeks and each time his wife insisted he would call or had called, but he never did get back to me and I decided I didn't want to play cat and mouse games with him any more. The second painter is a very nice chap - a bit of an odd jobs man who is good at many things. He painted the top landing with the long wall drops for me back in November. He also quoted me for the kitchen ceiling and some other carpentry jobs too. But he is also heavily subcontracted to put in kitchens, bathrooms, conservatories and double glazing for someone else, so his time for other "smaller jobs" is limited. He even works evenings and weekends too, so it is not that he is shirking work. He told me in December he would be back soon to do my kitchen ceiling. Of course, I am still waiting. I could get someone out of Yellow Pages or the local paper, but I prefer to get someone recommended rather than a cowboy.

As I could not yet proceed with the kitchen, I thought I would turn my thoughts to the lounge. The lounge is open-plan (has no door) and has a staircase going through it - a flight up and onwards to the bedrooms and a flight down and onwards to the front door and the kitchen beneath that. In decorating the stairway recently, I had passed through the lounge, keeping only to the stairs. The lounge now looked a little "sad" in comparison to the bright stairway paint. I fathomed that the ceiling still looked in good nick and I could get away with not painting that, so I pulled all the furniture into the middle of the room and set about mending any nail holes in the walls, then painting walls and woodwork. It only took two days - I started on Friday morning and finished last night. It looks good, even though I say so myself, and today I even cleaned the window glass and PVC frames to finish off the effect. Another room freshened up in my master plan of projects. Five more rooms to go!


This morning I rang my dog-walking companion (the one I mentioned here) to see how her dog is. We have been walking our dogs together in the park every morning for about the last eleven years. We have become firm friends and although our ages differ (she is at least 15 years older than me) we have a lot to talk about. Her dog took ill two weeks ago, the same time as Snoopy, and was displaying very similar symptoms- back legs not functioning, in pain, shaking. The only difference was her dog kept vomiting. We did wonder whether they had both eaten something poisonous in the park, but our respective vets discounted that. In the end, my vet thought Snoopy may have a combination of spinal arthritis mixed with a damaged liver (possibly tumour or fibrosis) and my friend's dog was diagnosed a few days ago with tumour of the spleen. Because both our dogs have been ill over the last few weeks, neither of us has been going to the park at all and so have been communicating by phone. I called at her house last Thursday to take a bunch of cheerful daffoldils for her and to give her dog some soothing pats. This morning my friend told me that the dog worsened over the last few days and was put down yesterday. My friend is naturally very upset. She has always had a dog (she even, in less politically-correct days gone by, used to take her dogs with her into the classroom all day when she was a primary school teacher and before the governors made her stop doing that). Instictively she feels she would like another dog straight away, but a lot of the local rescue homes now ban rehoming dogs to people over 70. The fact that she is fit, energetic and would give the dog a fantastic life (two long walks a day and agility classes once a week) is by the by. It seems our morning walks in the park may have come abruptly to an end. Snoopy meanwhile continues to chug along, although is definitely not 100%, and will need further blood tests in a few weeks to see if his liver is deteriorating.

LONESOME

I've been away at my mother's for a few days, trying to recharge my batteries and at the same time doing chores for her, but am now back home again. I am pleased to say Kay is recovered from her tonsillitis; Snoopy is a little better thanks to the painkillers and antibiotics prescribed by the vet; and we got through Greg's first anniversary intact although, now that first year's milestone has been reached, Greg slips ever more from my reach. It was one thing to say he died a few months ago. Quite another to say it was a year ago. Soon it will be two years ago and so on. It is as if he were being consistently pulled away by a long rope and the gap between us getting greater and greater. I try hard with eyes shut tight to recall the sound of his voice, the contours of his face.

Because Snoopy has been ill, and at times very weak, I have stopped the early morning walks in the park where I usually meet up with other dogwalkers and have a good chat. The last two weeks,except for when I was at my mother's, I have taken him on short walks up and down our road and, although he trots on the outward run, he plods very slowly on the return. As a result, I have hardly seen a soul and certainly not spoken to anyone, so I am feeling a right recluse and a tad lonely. Somehow, I just wish Greg would join me in a detoxed form and all would be well again. I'm sure I'll bounce back. As an only child, I am used to my own company but right now I'm tired of the sound of my own voice!

Kick me when I'm down, why don't you?

I have not been looking forward to this week: it is one year since Greg died. Each day of this last week I have been thinking...... a year ago he went into hospital, or was moved to intensive care, was intubated, extubated, intubated again and then died. I feel compelled to savour each detail, roll it around in my mind as a sort of morbid memorial, to make sense of it, otherwise it still does not seem real -almost as if this last year has been a dream.

As if this was not enough, this week has not been kind to me at all. Kay is ill with tonsillitis and, as often is the case when she is very ill, she has been very weepy when she calls me, overtired and inconsolable. With two hundred miles between us, my mothering instinct to nurse her has been impossible except for advice over the telephone. Thank goodness for penicillin and paracetamol. She is coming home for the weekend tonight (a long-standing arrangement and entirely her choice, as she insists on being with me on Sunday 6 March for the actual anniversary of Greg's death).

To put the icing on the cake of all that, Snoopy has not been well this week. No, that is an understatement - he has been seriously ill. It started on Sunday when I was woken at 5am to what seemed like an earthquake - the bed was shaking and the cause of it was Snoopy - lying on the foot of my bed shaking uncontrollably. The tremors went on for some while and in my half-sleep/half-wakefulness I felt him writhing in circles trying to get comfortable. I must admit to thinking it might be something dodgy he had eaten and snapped awake to the thought he might just empty the contents of his bowels over my bed, so I quickly ushered him onto his bed at the foot of mine. It was then that I realised he could not use his back legs at all - he was completely paralysed from the waist down. I immediately thought "stroke" and started to panic. In the wee small hours of the night, when I am alone and a problem manifests itself, it is all too easy to panic. I got a doggie painkiller and forced it down him. After two hours there seemed to be no change. Moreover he did not want to get off his bed (could not get off his bed), and no amount of biscuit inducements or bribes of "walkies" (that usually do the trick) would get him to stir. By 7am I was panicking more. There was no way I could get a large, heavy and lifeless Snoopy down three flights of stairs into my car to find an emergency vet open on a Sunday. My own vet had given me his mobile number some time ago in case I ever needed him in an emergency but so far I had never needed to use it, but weighed up the pros and cons of contacting him now. It was Sunday morning and still quite early. I did not want to disturb his one chance of a lie-in and I was also dreading what he might charge for a Sunday call out to my house.

I managed to hold out another hour until 8am but Snoopy was still clearly not well. I rang the vet and a sleepy voice answered at the other end. He told me he would come round. When he arrived, he thought it might be arthritis in the spine and gave a painkiller injection and asked me to ring him again if Snoopy showed no signs of getting better

To cut a very long story short, Snoopy did improve slightly and could at least use his legs again,but was producing weird coloured things from his back end and looked very morose. I ended up during the week having to take a urine sample (I bet the neighbours had a field day seeing me running behind the dog in the garden with a bowl) and Snoopy rather reluctantly provided a blood sample at the vet's surgery the following day.

The results came back yesterday and were not good. It would appear Snoopy's liver function tests show a damaged liver or pancreas. This could be caused by a tumour or fibrosis. The only way to tell what is causing it would be to do an ultrasound scan (which means shaving off his fur to put the scanner on the skin and this traumatises the dog)or open him up (ditto). That would show the cause of his pain but would not necessarily solve the problem as both cases would be advanced and for a 12-year-old dog that would be too much trauma for little gain. So it is bad news really. Poor old Snoops is old and wearing out. To get this news this week of all weeks is not on. We are in for a rocky ride.

Out clubbing

Photo courtesy of emynd and bo bliz

"Out Clubbing" has taken on a whole new meaning. Kay has just contacted me to say she was out last night celebrating a friend's 21st birthday at a club. At one stage she looked down at her handbag slung over her shoulder and saw it was slightly open. Initially, she thought she might have not have shut it properly when she paid for drinks. It was only much later that she discovered she and two of her companions had been robbed of their mobile phones. The club was full to bursting so people were bumping into one another all the time... an ideal situation for the pickpockets. Not only that, but when she rang the mobile company today to alert them and freeze her account, she discovered £28-worth of international calls had been made shortly after it had been stolen. She has now reported the theft to the police and is on her way out to buy a new one, after all, someone who has used the phone to make international calls is hardly likely to hand it in. What a vile world we live in.

World Health and Alcoholism

A World Health Organisation report issued today (see here) states that 1 in 15 men in the UK is an alcoholic. That's a pretty high number. Given there are about 29 million men in the UK that means there are about 1.9 million alcoholic men in the UK, not to mention women. Given too that about half of those will have absolutely no community conscience and will drink/drive to get more alcohol, that is about a million drunk drivers on the road. This can be at any time of day, after all the true alcoholic will need to get that fix as soon as he wakes , so will drive with alcohol still in his bloodstream from the day before. But of course the number of drunks on the roads will get progressively worse during the course of the day and evening. Greg always used to insist that he was a better driver drunk than most people were sober. Yeah, right. That's why he had scratches and dents at every corner of his car. That is why, towards the end, I got his supplies, as I did not want someone's death on my conscience.

Mind how you drive. You never know how many of them at any given moment will be driving in front of you, behind you or towards you!

******************************

The report also says that 4% of all deaths worldwide are attributed to alcohol, greater than deaths caused by HIV/Aids, tuberculosis or violence. When you consider what efforts have been spent on trying to eradicate Aids and TB, it is amazing how little is being done to stop the march of alcoholism.

Happy Valentine's Day

This will be my first without Greg, but for all those love-struck couples out there, here is a little cartoon to warm your heart.




Based on the book "Love Monkey" by Edward Monkton

The worst day of my life

Angel of Grief (courtesy of Valerio Sibio on flickr.com)

The day my father died - ten years ago to this very day - was arguably the worst day of my life. I remember it well and it certainly does not seem as long ago as ten years.

His death was a wrench in more ways than one. He and I were always very close. He was proud of me and I of him. As the only child, I always wanted to protect him, as he had suffered so much as a child and young man, as I wrote about here. We never argued about things and he meant the world to me.


While I was on my honeymoon with Greg in 1976, my father had a heart attack and I only found out when I got back home again. Greg and I were leaving England to start our married life in Germany and I had to leave my father in hospital, not knowing whether he would live or die. He survived but I spent many a restless night in Germany wondering whether I would get a phone call with bad news. Amazingly, he went on to live another twenty-five years and it was not his heart that eventually let him down in the end. He developed leukaemia about three years or so before he died and although that type (chronic lymphatic leukaemia) was not a killer, he went on a few years down the line to develop a second type which was aggressive (acute myeloid leukaemia). Up to that point I had no idea that there were so many types of leukaemia and that some were more dangerous than others. I remember well when the AML was first diagnosed. It was mid January 2001. My father had been feeling seriously unwell for a few weeks and the consultant haematologist was puzzled and decided to run some more tests. The news was not good. Not only had he now got a second type of leukaemia (it was rare to get two kinds) but it was fatal and he only had weeks or at most a few months to live.


As if this was not bad enough, I was faced with a major dilemma. Not only was I about to lose my beloved father but I had to have a hysterectomy and I was unhappy about the timing. I had a huge mass growing inside of me making me look slightly pregnant. My gynaecologist was pressing me to have an urgent operation as he was fairly confident the tumour was benign, but could not rule out the small chance it might not be, until he had cut me open. Also, because of its rapidly growing size, he did not want to delay. I was booked in to have the operation on 2 February 2001. A few days before, I visited my father sixty miles away, who had meanwhile been admitted to his local hospital for blood transfusions and general care as he was very weak. The prognosis was now that he was fading fast and would probably not live beyond a few weeks. Still my gynaecologist was pressing me to get my operation done as soon as possible, as time was of the essence for me too. Friends and relatives were urging me to see sense and not to delay my operation in favour of my father. Reluctantly I agreed to go ahead with my operation and then, with that at least behind me, concentrate on helping my dad through his last weeks.

On 1 February 2001, the day before my operation, I was at home packing my case and counting down to 6pm, the time when I was supposed to report to the gynaecological ward. At lunchtime, I was just about to run a bath when I received a very tearful call from my mother telling me that my father had just passed away. I was absolutely devastated: the most wonderful man in my life had gone. The last thing I wanted to do was proceed with my operation and I rang my gynaecologist to tell him I was cancelling. He said he could not force me to go ahead but he urged me to think about myself as there was nothing more I could do to save my father and there was still that slight doubt that I could have a cancerous tumour. I asked him to let me have more time to consider. By now friends and relatives were ringing me, as they too had heard the news about my father. When they heard that I might be cancelling my operation, they were horrified and begged me to reconsider. Greg pleaded with me to put myself first now. The rest of that day passed in a blur. All I remember is later that evening lying in an old Victorian-built ward of about 20 beds at about 8pm, as Greg kissed me goodnight and left for home again. I recall being in the midst of a busy, noisy ward full of people, yet I felt so alone and wretched. I was about to have my insides ripped out, but my heart was already crushed to a pulp.

Thankfully the operation on the next morning revealed that my tumour was indeed benign (a fibroid) although an extremely large one the size of a rugby ball. I lost half a stone in weight overnight! Two weeks later, clutching my stitches, I was able to cope with the sixty mile journey to my father's funeral. It was arguably the worst month of my life, even compared to the hand life was to deal me later.

All things bright and beautiful

For the last twelve days I have slaved over a stepladder and a pot of paint, over-reaching here, turning into a contortionist there, painting four of the six levels of my hallway and stairs. Walls, ceilings, doors and other woodwork all needed at least two coats to cover the horrible brown nicotine gloop caused by Greg's chain-smoking over the years. I am cream-crackered (as they politely say here) but the end result is one beautifully decorated hall and stairways. Although I say so myself, I am rather proud of my efforts.

Before

(note the upright bannisters)

During

(Note no upright bannisters)

After

Next project is the kitchen/diner.

The contagious disease

Picture from steadyhealth.com

Last week, I went to my local Al-Anon meeting for the first time since before Christmas. I have explained before that the Al-Anon philosophy is taking its time to have an effect on me (if any) and I am rather stuck on Step 3 which is handing my life over to a Higher Power. I have no idea what or who my Higher Power is and whilst stuck on Step 3, I have no real hope in hell of progressing through to the next stages and beyond. Maybe somewhere along the way, I have missed a vital link or important piece of information. I find writing my blog does me more good, to be honest,as I can get all the anger,frustration and despair off my chest. Writing it down just seems to be the help I need. Yet some people have been going to the group for over ten years and swear by its usefulness. I just go because I like to meet people who have been in a similar situation to me and who can empathise with me. Until you have lived with alcoholism, you really have no idea how horrific and life-changing it can be. The group members come from all walks of life, are all ages and have different faiths, but we all have one thing in common....we have lived with an alcoholic parent, partner or offspring. I enjoy the chat after the meeting rather than the meeting itself.

At last week's meeting, someone new turned up. A young girl in her late twenties together with her mother. Her brother is the alcoholic and is causing so much grief in the family. Like many people who first come to Al-Anon, they were at their wits' end and were looking for that magic wand to solve their problem. Sadly the only person who can wave that magic wand is the alcoholic themself. It is the alcoholic who must first recognise that they are an alcoholic and make the first move to stop drinking. Only they can agree to try detox (i.e. come off the alcohol under a medically-assisted programme) and then rehab (i.e.six-month long stay in a centre where the reason for drinking is analysed and coping mechanisms are learned.) Only the alcoholic can fight the demons and stay firm against temptation, for that is truly the hardest part. Relatives and friends can advise, support, cajole, beg, nag, plead, but it needs co-operation on the part of the alcoholic to bring about the change to sobriety. If the alcoholic won't see that they are addicted or refuse to do anything about it, that is unfortunately where you hit the brick wall.

I felt sorry for the newcomers at the meeting. They were clearly so desperate, like I had once been. The young girl sobbed uncontrollably as she unfolded her story. Her mother kept walking away from the group in tears as it was too much for her to hear, even though she lives with it every day. It made me so angry to hear of yet another victim of alcohol and their damage to those around them. It is often said that alcoholism is a contagious disease. Only one person is the alcoholic, but it affects everyone else in the family. All the people in my group are such lovely people. That is why I like to talk to them afterwards.They really do not deserve all this and certainly did not ask for it.

QUIET

The house was full of laughter and chatter over the last few weeks as both Kay and my mother shared Christmas with me. Kay went back to uni last week and I have just returned from taking my mother back home replenishing her larder and fridge with food in case there is more snow on the way. My house now seems deathly quiet with only the sound of ticking clocks and Snoopy's rather snuffled breathing. No different from all the months before, but you can cut the contrast with the previous few weeks with a knife. I shall have to get used to being on my own again until Easter. Just as well I have plans to paint everything in sight, unless it moves or breathes!

Goodbye 2010. Hello 2011

Greg 1949-2010

The end of another year and what a year! 2010 will forever be etched in my memory as one of those landmark years. A year ago I wrote this. As usual, I was full of optimism at the start of a new year but realistic enough to know that something bad had to happen, as the elastic of our living nightmare could not stretch any further.

Thank you for all your kind comments to each and every post I have written. I know some people answer every comment on their blogs, but I am usually rushing from one job to another in my attempts to keep busy busy busy, so I don't usually have time to comment to individuals. It does not mean I do not appreciate your comments, though, and when I have been a bit down your comments have truly helped.

Kay and my mother managed to get here for Christmas from different points on the compass, despite the threats of heavy snow keeping them away. We survived our first Christmas without Greg. Kay and I have always loved Christmas, so I wanted to decorate the house and the tree, as usual, putting a special star-shaped tag with a message to Greg in a prominent place on the tree. When we sat down to the big Christmas lunch, we began by raising our glasses to each other including Greg in the toast. We talked a lot about him - the films he would have liked on TV, the things he used to say or do. So although he was absent in person, he was there in spirit (though thankfully not the whisky kind!) It was a relaxing Christmas - no tensions or arguments like last year - and it seems strange to say it, but we enjoyed it.

Now, just like a year ago, I am gradually winding down to the last day of the year, waiting for the chimes of midnight and a new year emerging. I am again full of optimism, that Kay and I can finally shake off the last vestiges of the nightmare we have gone through and start to rebuild our lives.

I wish you and yours a happy New Year and may all your wishes come true.

 

Why?

In the last few years of Greg's life, we did not have deep meaningful conversations any more, in fact for the most part we hardly spoke at all. We yelled at each other when alcohol made him impossible and his alcoholism made me angry in frustration, or we kept conversation purely to the functional, such as "what time is your hospital appointment?" or "I'm taking the dog for a walk". Otherwise we lived separate lives in silence. In any case, Greg's mind bordered on that of someone suffering from Alzheimer's. He was often very confused - a condition caused by the excessive alcohol. He would misread the clock and think it was a quarter past ten at night when it was really ten minutes to three in the early hours of the morning, so would ring me, if I was away from home at my mother's. Getting woken from a deep sleep by a phone call at that time of the night used to chill me to the bone, but I got used to it, as he did it so often... and not just to me. He would also confuse me with his mother and often phone her to ask her something that was clearly intended for me. He would phone up friends and talk for hours on the phone to them, and I could hear him often repeating the same sentences over and over again in the course of the call. It was like he was on a continuous loop. He even once rang a friend and in the course of the conversation asked how her partner was; the partner had died some six months previously and Greg had "forgotten" this. He once was a very intelligent man holding down a very stressful job with hourly deadlines. That all seemed to fade to nothing in the space of a few years once he had retired and turned to alcohol. So our conversations dwindled too.


I am now 9 months further on from Greg's death. The letters, emails and official practicalities arising from his death are beginning to finally wane. My last recent piece of action was to organise an entry for Greg in a book of remembrance at the local crematorium and to attend a small candle service last week which the local undertaker invited me to at their funeral parlour. With that done, Greg' death passes into history. I am facing the first Christmas without him, comparing this year with last. I still have not been able to cry. But the numbness following his death and the subsequent anger have passed into another phase. I have lots of questions to ask him and the one at the top of the list is "WHY?"

• Why did he want to drink so much after he retired?



• Why couldn't he have found some hobbies?



• Why was he hellbent on killing himself?



• Why was life so horrible that he wanted to leave it?



• Why did he want to leave me on my own with so much life ahead of us?

Was it that he was so unhappy at work that it made him retire when he did, or was it really the ill-health he claimed as the reason? Was retirement such an anticlimax after such an exciting but stressful job? Was life at home with me so boring? I wonder whether I missed vital signs when he was younger. If only I could sit down with him now and ask him those questions and hear his answers, but all I am left with rolling around in my head is "Why?" It's a question which I think of when I wake and before I go to sleep and often in the middle of the night too. The sad thing is, I am never going to get those answers and sometimes the silence in reply to those questions is agonising.

The Club

This week I joined a club. You don't have to pay membership subscriptions to become a member, in fact you are given money to join. Not everyone is eligible - you have to meet certain criteria - but most people don't really want to join in the first place. I am talking about the club of OAPs (Old Aged Pensioners). I have reached my 60th birthday (yikes, how did I get there?).

I must confess to dreading it beforehand - one foot in the grave, God's waiting room etc. "I'm too young to die", I thought. I don't feel sixty. Nearly everyone I know or meet, says I don't look sixty, more like forty. I am still energetic, have all my own teeth and marbles and am a dab hand with a mallet or a paintbrush. I don't wear furry hats which have flaps over my ears and I don't push bits of rubbish into the kerb with a walking stick. However, am I now supposed to push my decrepit way to the front of the bus queue waving my free bus-pass or hopping on a coach for a day-trip to Bournemouth? Am I destined to watching back-to-back editions of Flog it or Escape to the Country to fill up my days? The approach of my sixtieth birthday (particularly without Greg) did not fill me with enthusiasm.

My two best friends from University days came to the rescue. One couldn't be there at the beginning of my birthday, the other could not be there at the end, so between them they devised a plan. One with her husband arrived the day before, accompanied me to my favourite national heritage site here, then we spent a lovely evening together, with them staying over. She brought me breakfast in bed the next day on my birthday, then decorated the kitchen table with flowers, balloons and breakfast things. They treated me to a lovely lunch in a local Italian restaurant, then once home again, they broke open a bottle of champagne and, together with my other friend who by now had turned up, sang Happy Birthday while I cut a cake the second friend had brought. The first friend and her husband then had to leave mid-afternoon, but the second one carried on showering me with presents, her lovely company and photos of her recent holidays to Vienna and Prague. We chatted non-stop and didn't get to bed until nearly 1 am.

We woke up to the first snow this season in London. My second friend needed to get back before the snow made travelling to Brighton impossible, so I waved her off mid-morning. It went on to snow all day and we are now under a white fluffy blanket of about 6 inches. Thankfully, I am in the warm and truly thankful for wonderful friends, who not only helped me to get through my first birthday without Greg, but made my transition into OAP-dom thoroughly memorable. Is Escape to the Country on yet? No fear.... I might even start training for the next London Marathon! That is, when the snow melts.....

View from my window this morning

A Right Royal Celebration

Prince William and Kate Middleton have chosen a fine day to get married next year. The 29th April 2011 would have been Greg's 62nd birthday, if he were still alive. I wonder if he'll be watching from his cloud with a raised glass of whisky to celebrate both occasions?

To rongs don mak a rigt

When our desktop computer died around this time last year, Greg and I bought matching Advent Roma laptops. They were fairy cheap in price (but then we were buying two) and I liked the look and feel of it. However I quickly made a discovery which I should have known if I'd read the reviews of other customers beforehand. For some reason, whatever you type on the keyboard, the letters you read on screen don't bear any relation. It would appear that the keys do not engage with what is below to make an impact. So I end up with loads of typos and have to redo it over and over again. If there are double letters (such as letter or running) in a word only one gets typed. It is a real pain having to constantly correct what I have typed in a long paragraph. Even worse is when a password gets rejected because the wrong letters have been entered. Do that three times on some sites and you have to re-register! Arrgh! I keep Greg's one at my mother's house now, so I am never free from the problem. SoI do apologis to anyone who ets a coment from me on ther blog because I do not men to type int h wrong ting, honestly. It's this blimin keyboard.........

The dangers of alcohol

You may have seen a news item earlier last week saying that alcohol was more harmful than heroin. Since then I have been scrutinising online debates in which a few medical experts give their sneering opinions on this.... more harmful than heroin - don't talk rubbish, kind of thing. In my humble experience the majority of medics completely underestimate what alcohol can do and, if they can be bothered to deal with it at all, they come up with unhelpful solutions with no real idea of the enormity of the problem. Unless it has touched their own lives, they really haven't a clue.

The trouble, as I see it, is that alcohol is more readily available in society than so-called dangerous drugs. It can be obtained 24 hours round the clock at supermarkets, petrol stations, bars and pubs. It is available at ridiculously low prices and, if they are clever, even children can lay their hands on it. It is socially acceptable to have a few drinks. It is an ice-breaker, a relaxant, a prize at the end of a hard day. You don't hear the average person saying that about heroin. So, unlike heroin, alcohol is welcomed in through the front door in most homes. It weedles its way in under the pretence of being harmless and waits to pick on someone vulnerable. In safe hands, it causes no problem. The odd tipple before bedtime or after church, the birthday celebration, a fine meal - these are socially and medically acceptable. I suspect in safe hands, the same can be said of heroin. But when the use of these substances turns into an addiction and then a dependency, that is when the argument that alcohol is less dangerous comes unstuck. The alcoholic has no problems getting their fix at any hour of the day and the shopkeepers are only too happy to keep on selling it. At least the drug pushers have to go underground and are not available on every street at every time of the day.


I have learned that alcoholism is an illness, possibly even a genetic mutation, just like cancer or cystic fibrosis. Some people have absolutely no control over their alcoholism, try as they might, because the genes have preprogrammed them to be like that. If that is the case, then having alcohol available on the streets 24 hours a day is tantamount to having heroin on sale at Superdrug or Sainsburys.


I don't know what the solution is, other than to push up prices and sell it only between set hours and only in a few locations. When pubs used to shut at 11pm, people went home to their beds. Now pubs and clubs stay open till the wee small hours and stay open all day. You read about young kids clubbing till all hours and throwing up on the pavements of London, Crete and Ibiza. The young are getting so used to alcohol in large quantities on a reguar basis that I fear, as they age, it will inevitably cause untold damage for them in the future. This is going to put even more stress on an already strained medical system.

I found a sheet of paper Greg had been given in the past, outlining what damage alcohol can do:

Brain: shrinkage, causing general motor and sensory impairment; anxiety; depression; neuroses; phobias; hallucinations.


Oesophagus: oesophageal varices occur as a result of increased pressure of the portal veins, causing localised varicose veins in the throat. These may rupture, resulting in an often fatal haemorrhage.

Liver: becomes enlarged with fat deposits and may be inflamed causing alcoholic hepatitis.


Reproductive area: in men, impotence; shrinkage of the testicles, loss of male sexual characteristics and possible feminisation in the development of breast tissue.

Mouth: increase risk of cancer of the mouth, throat and oesophagus.


Lungs: Reduced resistence to lung infections, colds, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Heart: Fat is deposited in the heart muscle, impairing its function and precipitating heart attack.


Stomach: chronic gastritis; ulcers; vomiting; diarhoea; malnutrition.


Intestines: inflammation of the intestine wall inhibits absorption of vitamins and iron causing vitamin deficiency and anaemia; varices (varicose veins) which can rupture causing fatal haemorrhage.


Hands: Tremeulous hands; tingling numbness; loss of sensation in the fingers.


Toes: Numbness and tingling in the toes.


Not a very happy list of symptoms, is it? I know for one thing, Greg had nearly every damn one of those symptoms and alcohol took his life. Still unsure whether it's less dangerous than heroin?

Time waits for no man

I was clearing out some drawers at the weekend and came across an envelope containing Greg's personal effects. It had been given to me by the hospital a few days after he died. I was vaguely aware of its contents, having briefly opened the envelope and looked in, but I had put it in a drawer to look though another time, when I felt a bit stronger. As the months went by, I would often go to the drawer for something else, see the envelope and decide against opening it, until the right moment came along. As I say, I was clearing out drawers over the weekend and came across it again. I sat down, took a deep breath and opened it.

Amongst things like his wallet and credit cards was his watch. Still working like, pardon the pun, clockwork and on wintertime too, so it was appropriate it should be found again this weekend, as the clocks had gone back one hour to wintertime again. It made a lump form in my throat and hot tears try to force their unsolicited way from my eyes. Greg has gone, but his watch lives on. How ironic.