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3 May 2012

Posted by DMC on 4 May 2012 in Diary |

It is just over two weeks now before the first have my visits to Lord’s for the Test Match. I really wonder how well I will cope and whether or not I manage to last from the 8.30 departure with Ollie-my Friendly Wheelchair Service-until I arrived back here around 7.00 p.m. I recall, about this time last year wondering whether I would manage my Lord’s trips and as it turned out I managed very well and did not get too exhausted. Well here we are a year later with the same burning question. The only problem being that I am noticeably weaker than I was last year and simply do not have the stamina that I had before. Last year I managed to go on three consecutive days but this year I shall certainly try to have a day between. I have limited my guests from the usual 14, to half a dozen or so. They will understand my situation. So if I am not up to appearing one particular day, I know they will understand. Having said that , if the weather is fine and reasonably warm and I’m feeling up to it. I shall certainly try. As I said last year, this will almost certainly be my swansong.

At last confirmation of the result of the ballot for the Wheelchair Enclosure tickets arrived from Lord’s.

They are certainly are cutting it very fine with the first test match starting in just over two weeks. In fact, it wasn’t even the tickets but merely an e-mail telling me what I will be receiving as a result of the ballot, in due course.

It was only my persistence in telephoning the office that I received an e-mail from them telling me what allocation had been made to me. Considering I wrote a letter to the assistant secretary about my 78th birthday and asking if they could please and least ensure I got a couple of juvenile tickets on that day, I was very disappointed with the result of the ballot. Out of 15 tickets applied for I only received 4 and none of those were for juveniles. I was very keen to introduce my two grandsons to Lord’s on 18th of August, my 78th birthday, as this seemed an appropriate occasion but unfortunately they will be on holiday in Wales at the time and the logistics of coming down to London and back to Wales would just be too complicated and would have messed up their holiday. It’s a great pity really, as this may well be my last chance to introduce them to the club and it to international cricket.

Unfortunately the new laptop started playing up today. After several attempts I managed to get it to boot up after 5 min 10 seconds then it took another 3 min to complete the process. Then a pop-up box appeared about some problem or other and offered to repair it, which I OK’d. It cleverly completed this process and then behaved reasonably normally. This is the last thing I need is for this third laptop to go wrong army as we had just seem to have got it right. The one thing I must learn to do is to’ print the screen. There is a Print Scn on the top right hand which I know you can press to record any pop-up boxes but just where you go from there are not sure. Obviously if you can produce a message explaining the problem and possibly the solution, this is very useful to anyone helping you to resolve it.

All these wonderful voice activation programmes that Paul and I have been working out together will be useless if my voice deteriorates a lot more. The problem is having lost most of the muscular support to my diaphragm I cannot project my voice as I did previously and it now pipes and wheezes like an old man and is getting worse, week by week. The user profile in Dragon sometimes simply does not not understand what I am saying. I’m already having to accept more errors than I did previously. Couple that with the day when my arms give out – which I suspect will not be too long as they are very noticeably weaker – I will then not be able to use my one splinted finger, to get me out of trouble. Maybe the eye camera in combination with Dragon will then come into its own.

Having recently bought my Will up-to-date I thought  my readers might be amused by this. Click here.

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