21 September 2010

A glorious late summer’s day for the geriatric golf today. I had my usual ride around with Griggsy accompanied by a lot of ragging and  laughter, which, no doubt, did me the power of good. Between times getting me out of the car and in and out of the club house, good old Scott, the club secretary, gave me ‘hug’ lifts and transferred me like a baby from one place to another. The only time Scott was not available three of my dear fellow members attempted to get me through the main door. One pushing on my bottom one, pulling on my frame and the other one, rather apprehensively, onto my arms. They were about as effective as three inexperienced removal men trying to get a chest of drawers up a narrow staircase but, of course, they really meant well and I am grateful to them for trying.

When it came to lunch, again Scott came to the rescue and dressed me up with all my paraphernalia. I struggled to feed myself, not having the articulated arm rest which I use at home. and dear George (Bull), spotting my difficulty from another table, unobtrusively moved over to sit next to me and feed me. Next week I think I will try taking my articulated arm rest.

The one mandatory  lavatory break was affected now, as a narrow of habit, by Griggsy, escorted me to the ladies changing room and slipping his hands up the back of my kilt to remove my pants. It works very well with very little personal involvement from the carer. How much longer I will be able to wear the kilt will depend on how cold the weather becomes! We all know about ‘brass monkey’ weather.

20 September 2010

Another week has gone by and I am still on my feet. At least I am tottering about using my gutter frame but would not feel very confident in going any great distance with it.

The longest journey I do at the moment is from the house to the office and back. Regular readers will recall that I start every day with a series of exercises in bed stretching most of my limbs. Then, after breakfast, I have recently taken to doing two or 3 circuits inside the house believing this will help to preserve my leg muscles. However, as this is all guesswork I decided that it was time to call for the neuro physiotherapist, Mel, from the Saffron Waldon Community Hospital to check out what I’m doing and advised me whether to continue with these exercises or to substitute something else.

Mel came afternoonI demonstrated t hooeall dof the exercises that I do in bed, the morning  before rising. She approved of them all. The only caveat being not to overdo it. If I find I’m getting tired then cut them down, otherwise keep up the good work I’m helping to preserve what little muscle and joint mobility I have left 

In the early afternoon I suddenly remembered that this was the day of the fourth ODI against Pakistan, this one at my beloved Lords. Why was I not there? Although I had tickets for it, as it did not start until one o’clock and was likely to go on to eight or nine o’clock in the evening I had previously decided it might be too much first me. Anyway, I had the compensation of watching it on my laptop.

Bearing in mind that the corruption charges against the Pakistan team seemed to be gathering force added to which the Pakistanis are now accusing England of taking large sums of money in order to lose the previous one-day matche, the atmosphere was somewhat charged. Despite that it wasn’t a bad game with Pakistan backing first and knocking up a respectable 265 for7, with Swann taking 4 for 37. England were all for 227 after 46.1 overs, 38 short of the Pakistan’s score, with Gul doing most of the damage taking four wickets for 32 runs. This despite a spirited start by the English openers, Strauss (68) and Davies (49), the rest of the team failed dismally. The spirit is gone out of this particular series with all the accusations of corruption flying around. Nevertheless, the outcome of his five match series has come down to the last game in two days time.

19 September 2010

Had a very pleasant weekend. A quiet Saturday and then the drinks party on Sunday with the Olivier’s saying goodbye to the Curtis’, the erstwhile neighbours.in the Arkesden Road. Alice wheeled me around in the wheelchair as the house was any a couple of hundred yards away.

We didn’t stay too long at the party as Smiler and Kimberly drove down from London to have lunch with us. Probably the last time before they go after America in the middle of next month. As it happens they will be away precisely the same time as I will in Thailand. That means that ‘my lovely’s’ two favorite men will be in the same time. Not a happy thought for her.

17 September 2010

A rare London day  (I don’t count going. To Lords). In fact, I’ve not been up since I fell off the train on 8 June and broke my leg. The train is now not an option. Of course, it would be possible to get by wheelchair but that will require some organization which we have not yet got round to.

Today I went with Barry, by car..  I went  to Skadden’s offices, in Canary Wharf, on the Isle of Dogs. Skaddens’ are the successors, for my Chinese lectures at CUPL in Beijing, They,  have generously offered to take them on for the next two years. As a readers will recall I had hoped to be able to get ther myself and assist this year but with the campus being under construction and no Western closet, it would be almost impossible for me.

I met with one of the partners this morning, in fact, one of my old pupils, Paul Mitchard.  Paul is Head of Arbitration, located in Hong Kong. He will be giving most of the lectures himself but will be assisted by a female, Mandarin speaking, colleague who will deliver one or two of them. Frankly, in some way I’m relieved at not going myself. I’m sure if I did I would fuss around and interfere too much and I have no doubt that Paul and his colleague will do a great job without me. It’s just that after 10 years it is hard to give up the reins.

16 September 2010

I spent the early part of the day, after I finish my e-mails, making the final arrangements for the trip to Thailand. The hotel director, Tim Boda, has been an absolute star.

He is arranging to have two or even three mattresses put onto the bed to make it easier for the good Dr. to get me up and down. For the same reason, I will have extra mattresses on the sun bed and they have selected a room which gets the after noon sun. The hotel is providing a foldting wheelchair for my exclusive use during my visit which will save us the trouble of taking our own. One of the hotels staff has kindly contacted the taxi service that we have used for the last several years and confirmed ETA and agreed terms for picking us up and returning us to the airport at the end of the holiday at a very reasonable rate. I think that just about does it and I just count down the days until we go.

15 September 2010

A good day. My electric UpEasy cushion is working; my laptop has been returned and after two  visits from Duncan, sorting out one or two minor problems the laptop seems to be working reasonably well except for my voice activation programme, Dragon, which has slowed to a snail pace, in what it describes as a Compatibility Mode. There is no such thing listed in the Help section so I resorted to the technical arm of AbilityNet for assistance. (AbilityNet were most helpful. They pointed out that the Compatibility Mode had nothing to do with Dragon but was a Word problem. Apparently the document I was attempting to the dictate to was a’97 version whereas I am now on Windows 7. The other problem was the length of the document I was adding to — already over 220 pages. We both agreed that the solution was to dictate new material to my Dragon Pad and then cut and paste it into the long document. The help from AbilityNet was given by them taking control of my computer using Remote Assist, or a similar programme)

‘My lovely’ won £100 pounds in the local church lottery, her first win ever after several years of contributing .The best news, however, came from our wonderful OT, Sarah Moss, who has managed to locate a horizontal hoist that we will have erected in the bathroom, both for the loo and the shower, thus ensuring our independence for little while longer.

My secretary, Doreen, came in today and we got through a lot of fiddly jobs including tidying up my (short!) speech for the forthcoming 20th anniversary dinner of the Arbitration Club.

13 September 2010

The. second of the One-Day Internationals, between England and Pakistan, turned out to be a nail-biter, primary due to England’s poor performance in the field.  Pakistan batted first and knocked up a respectable 294 for 8 with Broad taking 4 for 81.  England started well enough with captain, Strauss scoring 126, supported partway by Trott with 53.  In the end England and won by four wickets but left it to the last over winning with three balls to spare. 

Having written that I feel perhaps that I owe an apology to the majority of my readers who come from overseas.  I should explain that cricket is an obsession  with many Englishmen – even the photograph at the beginning of this blog is of  me wearing an MCC cap, pouring out champagne at the last Ashes match against Australia, at the mecca of cricket, Lord’s cricket ground -  unless you are an aficionado, the above entry, and others like it, will mean absolutely nothing to you.  I can only apologize and suggest you do not bother to read them in future..

Hurrah, my Toshiba has been returned at last,.  Almost 4 weeks to the day and with the MND Association  around £400  lighter, since it was sent for repair.  That will teach me to be more careful where I put my teacup. 

My good neighbour, ex-accountant, Edward Oliver, very kindly came round as afternoon to check over the horrendous tax demand I had received.  It was particularly important this year in the light of the 6 million letters being sent out by H. M. Revenue where they admitted they had either over  or under charged the taxpayer.  As I had suspected, and thankfully Edward confirmed,  H M. Revenue owe me a substantial refund,.rather than the other way round. Accordingly, I have appealed. Watch this space!. ..

12 September 2010

Yesterday, was the ninth anniversary of the unforgettable tragedy the 9/11 destruction of the twin towers in New York with the appalling loss offer life. 

It might be considered apposite that it coincided with the last night of the Proms, which, ‘my lovely’ and I, listened to and watched  with a great deal of pleasure, in the evening.  Apart from some delightful Smetena,Dvorak and Vaugh-Williams there was the usual party atmosphere for the end of this two months season with all the fun and jingoism of Land of Hope and Glory & Jerusalem.  To me, at any rate, it was precisely the time to sing such inspirational songs to celebrate humanity’s ability to survive such tragedies, be thankful for our blessings and look forward rather than back.

In a similar vein we have recently past the 70th.  Anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the turning point in the last war, where countless  ordinary people showed immense courage and fortitude.  Again a reason for celebration.

Apart from the 12,000 Promenaders  in the Albert Hall, these final songs, including You’ll Never Walk Alone, were sung in combination with 30,000  people in Hyde Park London, 8000 in Cardiff, and 6000 each in Edinburgh and Salford. (I hope I’ve got the numbers right).  Probably one of the largest choirs ever to perform in the world.  A happy note on which to go to bed, albeit conscious of the deep sadness still being suffered by the friends and relatives all the thousands of people lost in the 9/11 tragedy.. Always remembered.

11 September 2010

I wonder how many of my readers noticed the nonsense included in yesterday’s entry?  One young man, Tony, in China did and sent me a rather cryptic, if slightly cheeky, message ‘Happy Teachers Day !!!’ which, at first, foxed me but then led me to review the latest entry.  What had happened was that the telephone had rung whilst I was dictating it.  I failed to notice that the microphone was still alive and accordingly it picked up snippets of conversation and inserted them into the entry.  What one has to do is to instruct the microphone either ‘to go to sleep‘ or ‘to stop listening’.  Most of the time it obeys and the little phallic like icon will move from erect, to 45°.  On the other hand, sometimes seems to have a mind of its own and takes no notice.  Anyway the nonsense, or gobbledy-gook as I call it, was only there for four hours, thanks to Tony, so hopefully not too many people noticed it, or if they did see it they might have thought it was my rather eccentric style!  Who knows? I therefore plead in advance, forgiveness and understanding for any errors or omissions in my entries.  I’m sometimes too lazy to check them carefully.

I suppose I should reiterate what a lifesaver the voice activation system is for me.  My hands are practically useless now and certainly I cannot hold down more than one key at a time, which is necessary in giving the computer a command.  For example, to bring up the Task Manager it is necessary to press  three keys at the same time, Control, Alt & Delete. I can do this through by means of Sticky Keys, which enables me to press one after the other in sequence.  My problem is that as I still have one rigid finger on my now, almost dead, right hand, I am too lazy to attempt to correct the inevitable errors in the dictation by voice — I still prod at the keyboard.  Although, Dragon Naturally Preferred 10, is a wonderful programme and can give you around 98% accuracy, speaking at your normal rate, occasionally it does misunderstand what you say and requires correction.  Although in theory one just has to say correct, whatever word it is that is wrong and you are offered a choice of five alternatives and can select one by saying ‘choose…’, the word you want is not always there.  No problem, you just say ‘spell that’ and having spelt it, say OK and the word is replaced.  This works most of the time but, as was the case today, the system totally misunderstands what you were saying and might, for example, insert a table, or something similar.  In trying to delete the unwanted insertion by voice can be a bit of a nightmare, thus my  resorting to the finger.  However, I have been assured by AbilityNet, the Computer  Aid arm of the MND Association, that I can be fitted with a prodder, either from my chin or forehead, once my arms or hands have given up the ghost for good.  To this end I have asked for another training session to prepare for that eventuality rather than waiting for the day I wake up and find I can no longer manage.  Better to practice whilst I still can use my finger if I get frustrated.

9 September 2010

It seems that I might well have underplayed of my friend’s daughter’s book Sister. I suggested that she sent details to my friend in Dubai, Jeremy Brinton, who is managing director of Magrudy’s, who runs 13 book shops in the UAE.  He may well be interested in stocking this book –nothing ventured nothing, nothing gained. This is what she wrote:.

.           ‘…about our daughter’s novel, a psychological thriller. It is her debut, called SISTER by Rosamund Lupton. She has been extremely fortunate to be selected by Richard and Judy to be one of the eight        books chosen for their new Book Club this autumn, and SISTER is the first title to be promoted for two weeks. In the first week (2nd September when it was published – 8th September) WH Smith has        sold 22,000 copies, and in the first three days there were sales of 15,695 overall. This put her 12th in the Bookscan paperback fiction list for the week 29th Aug – 4th Sept which is a great start. She has also been translated and published in Holland, Germany and France (so far the Book Club edition only), and the USA will be publishing it early next year. BBC Radio 4 have chosen SISTER to be the         Book at Bedtime reading from 20th September for two weeks.’

Still no sign on my laptop so yet another call to customer services at Toshiba.  I ascertained that the repairs, so-called, had been carried out (probably not more than 15/20 minutes  to replace standard component parts) and that it will be dispatched within three working days.  Bear in mind that Toshiba were told almost a month ago when they picked up this laptop, that it was from a disabled person who totally relied upon voice activation for written communication.  Even at this late stage you would think they could have expedited the return, but no, it all has to grind through the system.  I am not impressed, indeed, even when  I informed the customer services agent that I had catalogued the whole sorry saga on my blog, which is read daily by a round 2500 people, throughout the world, they did not seem to concerned.

My OT, Sarah Moss popped in as ofternoon with a new gutter frame.  The original one had developed a rather alarming bend in one leg, no doubt from a me leaning heavily on it when negotiating steps.  She has made an application to Social Services for some sort of hoist for the bathroom which, at the end of the day, I cannot see how it can be turned down, bearing in mind that before very long I will have lost the use of both arms and legs, and even if I resorted to a commode, how would I get up from it?  My only fear is that Social Services will consider the proposition but only after an assessment on  site which may well take several months, which is something of  which I do not have a superfluity.