2 January 2011

Not a very auspicious start to the year. I had a collapse last evening returning to my NHS chair in the study. Somehow I slipped off and crashed onto the laptop table. Fortunately I didn’t damage myself or the laptop but ended up on my knees clutching the table. How to get up from there?   ‘My lovely decided that she ought to use the standing hoist so whilst I grimly hung on to the table she moved furniture about and harnessed the hoist. The only problem was as my legs were squashed under me, each time she raised me up, using the hoist, I felt as though she was going to dislocate my shoulders or break my ankles. After a couple of attempts she decided we needed some help and she was fortunate enough to enlist Peter Hocking, a neighbour from across the road, who happened to be outside his garage at the time. So with a good lift from Peter we were soon back to normal but it did give us both a bit of a turn and was also worrying for ‘my lovely’ otherwise all dealt with the crisis magnificently. We must just be more careful in the future.

Add to that I had the worst night I’ve had for a very long time, really painful joints and bones. I discussed this with the good Dr Michael when he was here and I got the impression that he did not think it was anything very sinister. particularly as I have no painful joints or bone discomfort during the day. I think therefore we can rule out rheumatism and arthritis. He wrote a very respectful letter to my GP suggesting, amongst other things, that it might be a good idea if I had a bone scan, presumably to ensure that the prostate cancer has not spread. Dr Lort said she could not order a bone scan directly but she has referred me to an orthopaedic consultant who, no doubt, will be able to order a scan, if he thinks it’s appropriate. In any event, I had a bone density scan following my broken leg, only six months or so ago, so I imagine that had there been anything untoward with the bones it would have shown up then. The problem is of course that once I wake up, if I am really in pain or discomfort, I cannot really sleep. It may be that I shall just have to have more powerful painkillers.

A New Year and some advice for new readers. When you look at the blog for the first time you will note that the latest entry usually covers the previous day’s activity. In other words the current diary is in chronological order from the latest date. However, to make sense of it in terms of reading you want to go down the page as far as you wish, if you like to the end of the current entry, and read up, as events occur at a later stage which refer to earlier happenings. If you read it the other way around some of the comments will not make sense. I suspect the regular reader who only looks at the blog every two or three weeks probably scans done and starts at the last entry they looked at and again moves up towards the current entry. Think of it in terms of your favourite soap. If you have not watched it for a few days you would tend to go to ‘catch up’ and look at the episode following the last one you watched previously and work your way up to the current one. It’s the same with my blog (If regular readers only look at the blogs every three or four weeks or even longer, leaving aside the very few who look at it every day, and we are still receiving around 2500 hits a day, it follows that the total number of people who check on the blog on a fairly regular basis, from time to time could be anything up to  20,000 -30,000, even more. That’s a thought!)

Early evening we invited friends Jane and Kit Orde-Powlett round for a New Year’s drink. (Readers will recall that they are the parents of Rosamund Lupton, these sensational first time novelist who wrote Sister. Apparently this book sold over 300,000 copies in the weeks running up to Christmas.

That is pretty staggering for a first novel. I also heard that the ‘ lad from next door’ – Jamie Oliver –  has already sold over 1 million copies of his latest book. Although, to be fair, I have no idea if this is true or not but it seems a plausible claim. I’m lucky if I sell 1200 copies of my main work which admittedly is now priced at £410. I am obviously in the wrong business!)

We lit the fire and sat in the drawing room – I just adore log fires – but on balance I think it probably would be easier if we entertained small numbers in my study as it saves the whole rather tenuous process of getting up from the chair and transferring back to the study at the end. The fewer times I have to perform this manoeuvre the better.

I discussed the possibility of Kit popping in from time to time for the odd game of chess, to which suggestion he was very amenable. However, I should have known as he is a county bridge player he was also, many years ago, a county chess player so he will have to be very patient with me as I have not played for 20/30 years. Backgammon was my real love but I can’t find any of my contemporaries, who live locally, who are as keen as I am. At least, games like that will break up the day and mean I do not spend their whole time in front of my laptop although, I must admit that reading books on it and moving the pages by voice, could not be simpler.