19 June 2012
A scary night! Sometime during the night I woke up with pain in my buttock. I reached out for the alarm button and no amount of waving my arms about could find it. So I called out, as loudly as I could, under the respirator, for my night carer. There was absolutely no response, no matter how loudly I shouted. I must have kept this up for 20 to 30 min, intermittently, locating and attempting to press the alarm on my wrist but finding I simply did not have the strength. As time went by, with no response, and I was beginning to feel more and more pain I had to talk myself into calming down. How was I to know what had happened to his carer or even if she turned up at all! Maybe she had had a heart attack, or merely died in her sleep-I gather from Alice that two of the carers, who, of course, I never see, are pretty ancient -I am asleep when they clock on at 10.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. In the early morning. During the night I wear an eye shade to cushion the hard respirator, so can see nothing. After an agonising period of time had passed with me getting more frantic, but attempting to keep calm, one of my flailing arms struck the alarm button, which was about 15 inches above the bed in a place where I would not expect to find it. The response from the carer was immediate. Clearly then, she had just dropped off and my shouting was not loud enough to wake her but the alarm was.
To be fair, the carer was very apologetic but despite being rather grumpy about the incident. I kept quiet, having visions of this carer taking her revenge by knocking something, or whatever and allowing me to expire through lack of air. Why on earth I should have these sort of thoughts I have no idea except that there I was, in the middle of the night, totally unable to move or see, with a carer who had badly let me down. One reads almost every day about a nurse or carer overdosing patient or bumping them off one way or the other. (I have already confessed to being frightened of the dark, so this sort of experience did nothing to improve my confidence). Anyway, I was greatly relieved to finally get a response from this carer. I’m glad to say that she confessed her sins in her daily diary she filled in before she left, and, as a result, Alice and I agreed to give her a second chance. Had I been asked in the middle of the night I would have had her peremptorily dismissed.
Whilst I had been dealing with my own personal crisis, two events which were likely to affect the international financial markets, were being decided. Firstly, there were the elections in Egypt, which left the party winning the most number of seats unable to form a government without a coalition with one or other, of the other minor parties. Secondly, there were the elections in Greece, on the day when that country was due to give its decision about accepting more financial help, on very stringent terms, to reduce its national debt. The incumbent government retained power but had with fewer seats
Pre-empting the outcome of this election, the military junta, who had been running the country the past few years, granted themselves greater powers thus virtually emasculating the incoming government and leaving the world wondering what would be the outcome concerning the Eurozone debt. No doubt all would be revealed in the days or weeks to come but the possibility of Greece, leaving the Eurozone still seems to be a live option with no one able to predict the chaos in the international financial markets, which could possibly follow. The European stock market took the outcome of these two elections in its stride, with only minimal rises or falls. However, depending upon how the Greek situation resolved itself, the financial markets will, no doubt reflect the view of the institutions, being the main investors in the stock markets, on the likely long-term effect.
As this is Tuesday, sunny and dry and for reasons I’ve already explained, I’m not at the golf club, I think this little object lesson is very appropriate. Click here to find out why you should never lie about your golf handicap.
18 June 2012
Our first visitor this morning was Neil, from Possum – the instrument people who set up a master control unit, in my office, which I could use for telephoning, switching the lights on or off, locking or unlocking doors, etc all using a simple switch, which can be operated by striking it with one’s hand. Neil came today to add a second alarm option on the stalk, of what we call triffids (alarm buttons) attached to my bed. With a second switch on the ‘triffids’ stalk, it would not matter which end I struck it, either would trigger the alarm.
I must say, Neil is immensely helpful, and indeed more than that, innovative, in finding solutions to tricky alarm situations. We then spent a little time trying to work out a switch solution to substitute for the up and down switches attached to the NHS chair. The problem at present is, unless the control unit is precisely in the right position, on my thigh, and my finger is splinted, I do not have enough strength to press these small buttons on the chair control unit We came to the conclusion that we would leave things as they are for the time being, but when it became a real problem, Neil would return. and pursue the idea we were working on.
Having said that, with the thousands of NHS reclining seats that they have all over the country, surely there must be at least one patient who has the same restriction on movements as I do, for which they came up with a solution. So, I agreed with Neil, I will also pursue that course of action.
I did indeed telephone social services (equipment division) only to be told that I do not appear on anyone’s referral list so I would need to go through an assessment, over the telephone, before they could do anything. As I cannot hold a pen to write down the telephone number the good lady said she would ask the referral people to telephone me. So the ball is in their court.
Most of the afternoon was spent with Paul ‘the computer’. We were working on various methods of using the Camera Mouse. We came to the conclusion that we would need a good zoom lens in order to pick up the retina of my eye. Paul is confident that if we can do that we can slow down the movement of the mouse on the screen. The problem at the moment is that it flutters about like a ladybird. I see its value from me in being able to direct the mouse, merely by looking at the spot on the screen and then somehow switching the camera off so that the mouse cannot move again using the eye only. The idea is that we use the camera mouse in conjunction with my Dragon, voice activation. For example my biggest problem at present is correcting text. If the correct word is not appear in the correction box and I have to spell it out, I often get spaces and capital letters and it can take me forever to make the correction using voice only. If I can direct the mouse to the precise point in the text, merely by looking at it, this could be a timesaver. This is all in the experimental stage but if we crack it, it will be a great advance not only for me but for others in the same situation.
Having completed this entry. I tried to post it only to find that my blog came up as a complete blank white page. So, as Richard Morris is the only person who has access to the inner workings of this blog, it was an e-mail SOS to him.
.When I tried opening but the blog the following morning. the problem had been resolved. I just hope it wasn’t one of those occasions it took Richard all night, like the previous ones.
After that stressful incident no doubt you felt you could do with a drink. Click here to see if you are an alcoholic!
17 June 2012
Father’s Day. A day set aside to celebrate the value of the father in the family. Although started in 1910 in America it did not really take root much before the Thirties and since then has been a source of commercial income mirroring Mother’s Day, which is taken more seriously.
Anyway, Miles and Chloe did not miss the opportunity of saying nice things about me. I had a lovely card from miles with heartfelt greetings which, themselves, mean a great deal to me. Chloe telephoned to wish me happy Father’s Day promising a card next week. I should have told her not to bother, the moment had passed and, in any event, I have no doubts about her love for me and do not need to have it reinforced through the exploitative channels of a printed card.
As if’ ‘my lovely’ did not have enough to do. She was roaming around the garden earlier this morning seeking small flowers and lavender to make up into little bouquets for the Garden Open Day Charity. These bouquets will be sold at Piercewebs -the William-Powlette’s home at the other end the village.
We only have two brave souls who will open their gardens to the public today, the W-P’s and Simon Cook at Deers. Both families put in an enormous amount of work into presenting these gardens in the best light and therefore as a village we should support them.
We have often been asked why we do not open our own garden. It is certainly large enough, pretty enough and has enough interest in it. The problem is that neither I nor ‘my lovely’ have ever been true gardeners. We both love the garden, provided someone else is doing the work. The nearest I got it was mowing the lawns for over 30 years (over one acre of grass in several different locations) and even that came to an abrupt halt when my mower, a monstrous 1939 Dennis. Became too much for me to control and, on this particular occasion, cut a swathe through one of our favourite, mainly roses, flower bed.
After that we got a strong lad to do it for us. This was the first time I had a brush with the law concerning discrimination. I innocently put a postcard on the village noticeboard offering employment for a ‘strong lad’ to mow our lawns. I was contacted shortly afterwards by the owner of the shop, displaying the card, saying that he had received complaints that it was discriminatory against females and as such was in contravention of the law. I was requested to change the word lad to ‘person’. I had no difficulty with this as I had no doubt at the end of the day, there was no young girl in village strong enough to control this very heavy old mower. Nevertheless, what a lot of nonsense. If I wanted a strong lad, and not a girl, why on earth was I not allowed to say so. I suppose that putting the words ‘strong’ in front of the word lad was discriminating against weaker lads, but, I knew from my own experience, when they machine took over and ran away with me, that anyone other than a strong lad would not be able to cope.
‘ My lovely’ spent her time assisting the W-P” s Open Garden. Her little poses, were very popular sold out very quickly. The weather was relatively kind and as a result the opening day was a great success.
While Alice was doing her bit for the Open Gardens I was lucky enough to have Paul’ the computer’ sitting with me. Where Paul is very good is heeding ‘my lovely’s’ instructions and is not allowing me to talk to me too much! In other words she is kindly saying that I should be resting. Paul happily tinkers away with the laptop while I doze. After checking out the last dozen or so media entries on my blog to ensure they were not in Tables, Paul started thinking about developing some macro commands for my music library. It was then time for Paul to leave whilst agreeing that we would work together on this music library tomorrow.
As I have mentioned in the past whilst the actual dictation in Dragon is superb with a very high degree of accuracy, despite the change in pitch in my voice, my problem arises over corrections. There may be very small, like the addition of an apostrophe, or a single letter. but instead of obeying my correction. it frequently typed out the correction words without actually making the correction. I can see this becoming a great problem when I no longer have any use in my splinted finger so I’m afraid I will need to go into battle once more with Dragon to try to improve this situation before I lose the alternative I have at present.
16 June 2012
I had a particularly good night’s sleep, in fact the best yet since we have had the benefit of the night carers. We also had a new day carer from Ross Nursing, a second blonde Paula. She will have to be Paula number two (not Bert, as she suggested!)
I must say. I am impressed with the follow-up from my quarterly assessment both at Addenbrookes and Papworth. In the last Addenbrooke one there was mention of a slight deterioration in my speech and today I received a call from Tom (?) offering to drop in and discuss any problems, I might have, bearing in mind it is almost my only means of communication with the outside world. This was a timely call as I have become seriously concerned about maintaining this blog if I cannot enunciate clearly enough to use my Dragon, voice activation. An appointment has been arranged.
Jayne ‘ the sheep’ would normally have ‘baby sat’ me today but was unavailable so I was lucky to get Paul’ the computer’ who, as usual, kindly went through my most recent blog entries, removing tables or any other hidden instruction which can confuse subsequent entries.
Doctor Michael Davies returned my call concerning my so-called panic attacks I have suffered using the respirator. Certainly the first was the most dramatic and I really panicked when I I could not get any air at all and my nose and mouth were covered by the airtight respirator, (to be fair I have been told that the respirator is not entirely airtight and it is possible to breathe in and out through the side flaps. I think I would have to try this out for myself I place any reliance on it). As Michael says it will take some time to get back the confidence I obviously lost as a result of the accident. Before that I had taken the respirator for granted as a lifesaver whereas now I am only too aware how easily it can become a killer.
As I have explained yesterday that, as a result of a dramatic event in my early childhood , I am still frightened of the dark. Now it is even worse as I wear an airline eye shade to cushion the respirator and, as a result, I cannot see. Anyway, Michael was very reassuring, in particular, about my confidence returning wearing the respirator.
The worst that could happen is I have another panic attack, through temporary loss of air, but when I come round again my body will have kicked in and started breathing normally.
Much of this questioning was in anticipation of returning to my golf club lunches, and later on to Lord’s for cricket. ‘ My lovely’ is keen that I take a carer to accompany me on both expeditions but it really isn’t that easy. Whoever they are they would find it embarrassing to sit outside the club with the boys and then there is the expense which Alice gets very cross each time I mention it. My approach is to pick up one of my pals and make sure that he understands how the respirator works and rely on him.
The weather forecast for next Tuesday looks very promising – 19°C and only a 4 mph, south easterly breeze – so maybe I will be able to make this my second visit, to the club, this year. No sooner had I booked Ollie’s Friendly Wheelchair Service than John Gray reminded me next week Tuesday was on a Monday, as the Lucifer’s had booked the whole of Tuesday. Looking at the weather forecast for the following Tuesday, it looks less appealing and colder than next week, so maybe another two or three weeks will have to go by before I get back to my routine, of going to the golf club, on Tuesdays.
The lavatory side of things is probably the last vestige of dignity one has left, and once you have to rely upon others to help you including cleaning up you afterwards, you realise that there is no longer any aspect of your physical life which is private. To wear a pad, instead of underpants, is embarrassing enough, even if, as in my case I have never had the need to use them. Your told by sympathetic carers that it is just for the occasion when you might wake in the middle of the night with an upset tummy and there is no way you could be hoisted out of bed at that time of the morning. The answer is just to ‘ use your pad’. The same advice is given if you are out in your electric wheelchair and it is not convenient to find a hoist and be hoisted onto a commode. Of course, the convenience of the pad becomes obvious on such occasions but the thought of it is distressing to someone who was always been , punctillous about cleanliness. Anyway to show that we can always laugh at ourselves, even over such personal matters, click here, and be amused by this little video
15. June 2012
For some reason I would have to classify this as a’ low day’. No particular reason, that I can think of, I just did not have my usual spark.
Perhaps it was because it was another sunny morning, and it, the chilly side, I admit, but one that I could possibly have gone out into the garden yet some fresh air. Apart from the one visit to the golf club in March it happened the particularly warm I had not been outside, apart from has to ambulance, this year. Perhaps I was feeling a bit off-colour as during the six o’clock carer call I actually felt sick and although I had wretched a couple of times. I did not actually vomit. After that I felt a little better and survived the evening without any further alarms.
Earlier in the day. I have received a return call from Doctor Michael Davies, my consultant at Papworth hospital. I must say I have been very impressed with the care and attention devoted to patients at this hospital. I had e-mailed Michael a few days ago, saying I would like to discuss these episodes of surges of adrenaline. We spent some time talking about these rather alarming events. The first two were quite understandably they were frightening, particularly the first which arose as a result of the air pipe coming adrift from the respirator. I found myself with the nose and mouth sealed tight with no air coming in. Of course, I panicked and it took me fully 10 to 15 min, being held by ‘my lovely’, before I felt confident enough to put on the respirator and try again. The second occasion occurred when the respirator was taken off to quickly and my own breathing has not kicked in. As a result of these episodes of course I am slightly nervous when the respirator is removed so now we take the process slowly, step by step.
What can we do to avoid the use frightening episodes recurring? Nothing, other than what we are already doing and that is removing the respirator slowly to enable my own lungs to kick in. Hopefully, with the passage of time, the frightening experience will fade and I will return to normality as regards the respirator.
Of course, it is perfectly normal to be nervous about the respirator. Particularly, in my case, where I wear it over an eye mask (by courtesy of the many overnight flights I have taken). For someone who has been frightened of the dark. Since a small child, you are leaving yourself extremely vulnerable without sight and in the hands of anyone who messes about with the air pipe. Of course there is no reason why anyone should want to do you harm but experiences in early childhood which are stamped indelibly on one’s memory, and no matter how much one tries to rationalise the fear, it is always there.
We had a scare at six o’clock, when I was being dressed for bed. The standing hoist failed to function correctly. Although it was only a momentary lapse, it was enough to reinforce our fears that if hoist ever did fail with me up in the air, we will probably have to get they paramedics or the fire brigade to get me down.
Whilst I was in my e-mail server, Outlook I noticed that I had three draft e-mails waiting to be sent. One of them, to Doctor Margaret Saunders of the Rank Hospice was an important follow-up on the question of pain relief. I had obviously in waiting for some piece of information, before sending this e-mail, and then once it was in my draft e-mail box, I had completely forgotten about it.
The point was that Margaret and introduced me to Doctor Marc Abrahams, the pain consultant at Addenbrookes, who had carried out the nerve block on my shoulder. As all of my joints were painful, to some extent or another, I had asked Doctor Abrahams , where Thomlinson we went from here with the question of pain control other than the shoulder on which he had already attempted a nerve block. Dr. Abrahams had made a number of general suggestions about not taking one particular pain killer for a day or two, or adjusting the dosage, to see what a difference it made. In writing to Margaret Saunders, I suggested I would prefer some specific instructions which I would then follow and report back on.
What to divert the reader with today? Somebody sent me a batch of interesting photographs with no particular theme, but they are certainly worth looking at. Click here to see them
14. June 2012
One of our district nurses, Sarah, turned up today with a package of dressings for the two suspect sore toes. In the event, we decided that as the skin and not broken , we would not .this dress them, but keep an eye on them. I have been very impressed with the attention and response time from the district nurses where I have had occasion to contact them. I suppose they now have me on some sort of danger list which ensures that I get priority treatment. I was particularly impressed by Sarah asking if I wanted a weekly call from them. I assured her that I was fortunate enough to have a lovely wife, who keeps an eye on things but we would be in touch if there was anything we felt that they could help us with.
Talking of kind of people keep an eye on us and our affairs, I should mention that Doreen, my faithful secretary came this morning to go through the various paperwork and documents which have accumulated since her last visit. Where are I am extremely lucky with Doreen is that she has been with me such a long time, over 30 years, that she knows precisely where everything is and what needs doing. She even took the load off me by preparing last year accounts when I was finding it almost impossible to hold a pen.
Now, that my hands are completely useless is impossible to even tick items so without Doreen’s help I would have to employ an accountant which would be very expensive. As it is, Doreen has already made a start this year’s accounts and Income Tax Return which, with a minimum of input from me, she and my friend Edward Oliver, will be able to complete for me. Fortunately, as my work has all but dried up, other than the update of my book and my involvement with the China University of Political Law and Science, there are far fewer entries on these accounts which should not make them too onerous to complete.
Regular readers will be only too aware of the struggle I have had with my voice activation people over the past 6 to 9 months. In the end I gave up the battle as a dead loss, so the original problem still exists, basically although the dictation side of things is still pretty good, despite my rather horsey voice, the result of the creeping MND, much of the time it’s okay except for problems using Dragon’s Correction Box. As things stand this is easily coped with as long as I have the use of my one splinted finger, and that in turn means as long as my arm is still strong enough, even with the mechanical device I have, to ‘ float’ my arm across the keyboard. Unfortunately, this means I will have to tackle Dragon once more, in the not too distant future, about improving the accuracy of my correction box.
A few days ago I received a very heart-warming note from the wife of a now deceased MND patient. What was so nice about this was that although it was anonymous, as the lady involved did not want her personal feelings for all the world to see, she did want to say thank me for the blog and the good that it is doing. I quite understand her desire for anonymity and any of my readers can use the same ploy making contact to me through my e-mail (arbitrator@dmarkcato.freeserve.co.uk) making it clear they do not wish their comments to be published. From my standpoint, feedback from my readers is extremely encouraging. In the past I have taken a rather controversial approach on a topical subject from which I would have expected a number of my readers to become sufficiently incensed as to make a counter argument. I do get the odd note from time to time, perhaps not entirely agreeing with my point of view, but these are few and far between. I thank the reader who does take the trouble to comment on a blog entry for experience shared is just as valuable to other readers has my original blog entry comment. So, I encourage anyone of my readers, who has a point of view on an entry, to click on the comment icon, at the beginning of the entry, and share their thoughts with us.
Yesterday I finished reading Water for Elephants, this after having seen the film. I must say I do not think the film did justice to the book. I have at least half a dozen books that I downloaded using my Kindle software so I think I will read a light page turner next., It
To conclude today’s entry I share with you some interesting photographs sent to me by one of my readerstop Click here and enjoy ‘something to smile about’. ( click slide show
then From the Beginning )
13 June 2012
As a result of the four frightening experiences with the respirator, ‘my lovely’ seems adamant that I should have someone with me at all times who understands the operation of the respirator, this led me to consider the logistics in connection with my weekly visits to the geriatric golf day at Worlington.
This person, whoever they will be, will have to be hovering around close to me during the entire time I am out of the house. One option would be to ask Ross Nursing if they would be prepared to let one of their two male carers to accompany me for those five hours. Assuming they did, how would this work out. I would arrive at the golf club in the ambulance as usual, around 11.00 a.m. when I trundle off, here and there, across the course, and my carer could walk around the course with me, so no problem there. I then generally sit outside, in the sunshine (!) For half an hour or so before lunch. No great problem there for the carer to be close by but it is not fair to expect him to sit amongst us, as he knows no one and could feel left out, (but maybe not). The lunch should present no problems. The food would be brought to me as usual and my carer could sit next to me feeding me. Most times, after lunch. there are 20/30 min or so, to spare, before Ollie is due to pick me up, I sit outside in the sunshine and have coffee and perhaps a small cigar.
Again I see no problem here with the carer hovering close by. Then, when the ambulance arrives, I get loaded on, with my carer and at that stage, we have the added advantage of Ollie, who himself is respirator trained.
All of this is fine provided Ross Nursing can make available one of their male nurses on a regular basis every Tuesday in the summer (although to be difficult this next Tuesday is a Monday, due to the club having a visiting society on Tuesday).
Then there is the weather to consider. If it is likely to be wet, or the temperature likely to be below, say 15°C, Debbie, from Ollies Friendly Wheelchair Service, and I, have an arrangement that I can cancel even as late as an hour or two before the ambulance taxi is due to arrive. This late cancellation, I suspect, will not suit Ross Nursing, and that is if it is going to be possible to have one of these two male carers available on this basis, which I very much doubt. Why male you might well ask? because I just don’t see one of my female carers being able to hover around what is a solely male event without feeling de trop, or out of place, if you prefer.
Who else them, other than a Ross Nursing carer? A number of my friends in Clavering have always said “if there’s anything we can do to help, please let us know.” But, when it comes to how many of them would be prepared to be responsible should an accident occur, which requires the use of the respirator? I suspect that would be the stumbling block.
The other possibility would be to hang the respirator to the back of the wheelchair and, when I arrive, find a foursome whom I could join asking one of them to be responsible should the respirator be required. I think this would work, especially if one of them was a Doctor but otherwise the other members might feel that it is too greater responsibility.
These then are the logistics I must work out before resuming my Tuesday geriatric golf days.
12 June 2012
It being a Tuesday you might expect me to be driving round the golf course talking to my geriatrics club member friends. Of course, you would be right and I await with bated breath, the five-day weather forecast, which shows me that it is going to be warm and sunny next Tuesday. Sadly, there have been very few this year. Cancelled last week due to the Queens Diamond Jubilee and this week it is a course maintenance day or something of the sort, and for that reason there is no easy and we are this week!.
I am quite keen to get back to my routine ‘ Tuesdays is geriatric golf day’ If nothing else I want to test the strength I have left in my arms to steer the electric wheelchair. I always knew that I was getting perceptibly weaker as time passed. I could no longer operate my laptop, even then, mostly is by voice activation, if I did not have the use of my one splinted finger.
I shall have to be more diligent in finding voice commands to substitute for the ‘one finger’ corrections.
I have noticed this weakness creeping up on me in other directions. For example, if I lean too far forward. I do not have enough strength left in my stomach muscles to straighten myself up. Similarly, when I’m working on the laptop and I have to lean over to the right, in order to access a particular key, sometimes I cannot get back to an upright position and have to sound my alarm for assistance.
What I have found most frustrating of all is the lack of strength in my fingers. I cannot even depress a key on the keyboard, unless it is with the splinted finger. Until now I have been lazy and taken the easy way out, but whilst I still have some strength that I really must try to find commands which will enable me to operate the laptop without touching it at all. I know it is possible, it is just a matter of educating myself.
Our two visitors, Kay and Tony Dunn, postponed from yesterday came this afternoon. Kay is our old friend, whose husband, tragically died some years ago, allegedly, having attended surgery with the pain in his chest, was sent home by the Doctor, who suggested it was angina, and told to take some aspirin and come back on Monday. He died on Sunday from a massive heart attack! At least that is the story that went round at the time.
Smiler was of a similar age to Kay’s two boys, Tom and Mark and has continued this friendship, albeit, one or other of them, only rarely due to the boys both having married and having a family to consider as well as living some distance away from each other.
11 June 2012
Great excitement last night, most of which I was oblivious to. Apparently my respirator was constantly setting off the alarm and poor Lillian, my all night carer, was not sure what she should do about it. In any event she did not wake Alice but waited until she came down just before 5.00 a.m. The first I knew of it was Alice waking me up in bending over me and manipulating the mask. Apparently the alarm has sounded, intermittently throughout the night, We all came to the conclusion that it was either an ill fitting mask or that the increase in volume of air that we had requested was proving too much for that particular respirator mask. Alice contacted Papworth hospital this morning and was told to revert to the original mask – which frankly is less comfortable than this latest one – and from that we should be able to tell whether it is the mask at fault or the respirator.
This much I do know, and that is to remove the respirator slowly in small stages as I really believe that one of the ‘surges of adrenaline’ I have suffered from was caused through removing the respirator too suddenly, in effect, before my own system had taken over breathing manually.
We were expecting Kay and Tony Dunn to tea, but they fell victim to the floods which followed the torrential rain we had experienced over the past few days. Some parts of the country had their entire rainfall for June in one day with predictably catastrophic results. Hundreds of houses flooded and the wind, in conjunction the storm, wrecked a number of buildings. Anyway, Kay and Tony’s visit was postponed until tomorrow
The other storm, brewing up in Europe over the financial troubles being experienced by Spain, Greece et al, continues to rumble away. The powers that be thought that by throwing another €100 billion at Spain that would buy them time to sort out their financial affairs. That was the reason for the stock exchange rising initially when this announcement was made. Now, in retrospect, and having had more time to consider the consequences, the international stock exchange markets have fallen right back, wiping out the increases which followed the announcement of the further loan to Spain.
I do not want to be a know-all but I really do think they are just putting off the day of judgement by throwing more money at Spain. In my view it is merely deferring the day when they have to face up to the music. I sincerely hope that I am wrong and this latest loan will get them out of trouble. In the meantime the other Eurozone countries wait and watch on the sidelines with bated breath. The problem is there’s never been a situation quite like this before so no one knows exactly how the market is likely to react to a total default. In my view this latest gesture is merely postponing the evil day. Better to face up to it now then to continue week after week of uncertainty.
How is all of this affecting the man on the Clapham omnibus? Undoubtedly, people are cutting back . The good Doctor Michael I noticed the relative lack of customers in The Cricketers where we went on Friday. ‘My lovely’ has notice that the same can be said of the shops that she frequents. People are simply not spending, so frivolously as they did before and are actually concentrating on playing off their debts. All very laudable, except that we need expenditure in the ordinary retail market in order to demonstrate a return of confidence. It is possible to talk yourself into recession and it is just as easy to talk your way out of one. (The class half full syndrome) It gets increasingly more difficult when you’re juggling with such fine tuning as we are at present. For example, our GDP for the last quarter was finally reported at 0.00%, not exactly encouraging, but at least we are still in the black (just!). Bumping along the bottom, so to speak. People can take confidence from the fact that we have yet to go into negative figures then they might loosen their purse strings a little and start to buy our way out of this recession.
Even my supply of media material, with which I usually end of my entries, has, all but, dried up accordingly I can only offer you some words of wisdom which you might think were spoken in jest but are, in fact, the untarnished truth. A good illustration of one of the problems we are facing today. Click here to see the sorry state in which we find ourselves.
10. June 2012
When I woke up this morning I remembered that daughter Chloe had spent the night and so had the pleasure of her company until after lunch, when she returned East Dulwich. This was one of those rare occasions when it was not necessary to ask Chloe to help me deal with a backlog of printing for this blog, so instead we were able to have a nice relaxed morning and chat together. Chloe. leads a very busy life or atypical modern mum. As a mother of three young schoolchildren or, in effect, four, if you include Karl! As a consultant in clinical psychology at the Maudsley Hospital, three days a week and, what the Americans call a homemaker, in other words, someone who runs the household, and to have a couple of nights away from that, where she can perhaps have a lie in, is an unknown luxury which no doubt, does her a power of good, when she comes here.
The recent scare over my health, I suspect is the reason for the increase in visits from both children. Now that I am showing definite signs of improvement, it may well mean I shall see less of her but whatever the reason, it was lovely to see her today.
After another satisfactory night, under the vigilance of my night nurse Sylvia, I picked up, on the World Service, which I have playing all night, the latest dramas concerning the Euro and the Eurozone. This time it was Spain again, rather than the recent alarms we have heard about Greece. The Spanish government had come to the market to raise €40 billion to bolster then banks reserves. They had made it clear they did not wish to raise this money through the IMF or the World Bank, the subtleties of which escaped me, particularly in the dark wee hours. However, some independent audit had worked out that they needed at least double that sum so the general feeling was that they should ask for €100 billion.
How this money differs from that raised through the IMF et al, at approximately 6% interest, is beyond me, as generally, when you look at it, it is still debt that has to be paid off in the long run and this is yet another stalling process to put off the evil day. As I have said many months ago. I believe the Eurozone to be fundamentally compromised and the inevitable outcome will be some sort of re-arrangement, or two tiered market, with Germany, heading up the elite more stable countries and the second tier, including such countries as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
In discussing this to my carers when I was being got up and dressed this morning, one of them told me of an elderly relative who had been advised by a very senior government minister, purely in a friendly exchange, to liquidate her stock exchange holdings and have the flexibility of cash. I reminded her of the pre-war depression and the effect that it had on anyone in Germany who had taken such advice, where it became clear that on this occasion chattels and real property were the sort of thing to be in, certainly not cash with raging inflation. Some people were having to be paid twice daily, in an attempt to keep up with inflation, and currency was being printed in millions of Deutschmarks. So much so that people were taking wheelbarrow loads of currency to buy the basic commodities of life. No, certainly in those days, no one wanted to be in cash. I can claim no knowledge of what happened to the ordinary man in the street during this nightmare of spiralling inflation but I understand that the best thing was to be in debt. Provided you have something valuable you could sell at the right time and thus eliminate your debts for a fraction of what they had cost you.
I shudder to think how we would cope under similar circumstances and pray I do not have to find out the hard way.
Chloe left shortly after lunch to return to her brood we were pulling her leg about the sort of state the house would be in when she returned, however, she quickly disabused us of this common misunderstanding. Today’s ideal husband takes on his share of most of the ordinary household activities. After all, if both husband and wife work, why should he not share in the running the home? By that it is meant anything from changing nappies to cleaning the house, shopping etc. In fact, I was pleased to learn from my daughter that son-in-law, Karl is, an almost perfect example of this modern man.
Going back to my generation, when most wives did not work, the modern man in those days would come home and expect a little bit of fuss to be made of him. He would shortly be comfortably seated in his favourite armchair with a pipe or cigarette and a small glass of sherry, or the like, and his wife or one of the older children would be scurrying around for his slippers. I wonder whether I would have coped with this modern man approach!
Coming back to today. there have been horrendous floods in North Wales, where a month’ s rainfall has been thrown at the inhabitants in one day! You can imagine the chaos that that it has caused, and very heavy rainfall, in the same part of the country, is forecast for today. The people who seem to have been most affected are the poor souls who live in caravan parks. From a purely selfish point of view.
I must confess that I have an element of smug satisfaction in having bought a house that is something like 600 feet above sea level. I would like to say that this was a deliberate choice on my behalf, bearing in mind the flooding possibility, but that would be totally untrue. The fact is that it was pure serendipity where the choice that was made just happened to be the right one, when it came to flooding.
A short e-mail from the good Doctor Michael, flying over Singapore to let us know that all was well and he was well underway home. I suppose the amazing aspect of this is that the message was sent from his BlackBerry. Singapore holds abiding memories for me. The first time I was there in 1956. I found myself barricaded in the British Club as a result of some rioting, which was going on. The second time and there was years later, with’ my lovely’ and it was there that we learned that Princess Diana had been killed in Paris.
The weather forecasters were right (for once!), Although it is still quite early in the morning it is beginning to rain and the depth of greyness in the sky gives one the feeling that is not likely to stop for sometime. The temperature is well down in single figures and here we are ten-day short of the beginning of summer!
I finish this rather dismal entry with a short moving story, that is going round the clubs, of a poor chap who was recently killed on a golf course. Click here for the full sad story.