First Bike Ride Post Stroke

Recovering From a Stroke

Dreamer

For a short time many years ago, I was in the habit of noting down the contents of my dreams:

16 Oct 2004

I was lying in bed awake looking at the ceiling. Through a skylight I could see two people walking on the roof. One pressed his face close to the glass, grinned and opened the window. He thrust his head in and looked at me. He seemed to sense I was no threat and grinned again. I tried to call out but was struck dumb. I shook my wife but could not wake her. I tried to shout at her but I could do no more than mumble. I heard noise downstairs, so fearing burglary I got up and ventured down. A woman was lying on her side apparently asleep on the hall floor. I tried to ask her what she was doing and order her out of the house but no words would come. I went into the living room to check if anything was stolen and could hear the male intruder following behind me. I struggled to shout soundlessly for help. I woke abruptly to find my wife asking what on earth was wrong as I had been crying in my sleep.

 

16 Oct 2004 I was on stage with rock singer/songwriter Ian Hunter who was playing with a small band for a group of schoolchildren. He seemed unaware of my presence as if I was invisible. During a break I caught his attention. I apologised for boring him but told him I had been a fan since 1970 and how I loved his music and had seen him play with Mott the Hoople in the seventies and again several times in recent years with his own band.

 

17 Oct 2004 I was visiting a former work place. It appeared quite different to how I remembered yet I still seemed to know my way around. I recognized only a handful of faces. I felt very self-conscious and became aware that I was wearing no clothes. I felt that if I hurried along confidently no one would notice.

our weekend suppers

A certain little lady drives for ninety minutes. This is just some of what she brings with her. To say we eat a supper of bread and cheese does no justice at all to this sumptuous feast: numerous exotic, flavoured cheeses; rosemary bread; dipping oils loaded with herbs and spices; crackers; bruschetta; antipasto tomato salad; a giant cheese cake; and milk chocolate.

As if all that were not enough, she bakes buttermilk biscuits (scones in the UK) which sit in bags in my freezer.

Early on dark and windy mornings she rises at 5am and trudges across my icy parking lot amid swirling snow flurries to face a ninety minute drive to work.

It's an incredible life.

Dovetails

If, like me, you are lucky enough to have met someone new, you will be experiencing that fascinating period of learning and absorbing all you can about them. In the process, you discover areas of similarity and difference. Too alike and you might simply slide right off each other. But what if you are both very different? Will you be able to join like dovetails or will you fail to connect?

Extrovert       Introvert
Meat eater    Vegetarian
Wine             Orange Juice
Loud             Quiet
v Small         v Tall
Talker           Writer
Do-er            Thinker
Impulsive      Considered
Reactive       Composed
Boomerang   Languish     
Busy             Calm
Walker          Runner
Canadian      English


But that becomes inconsequential when each brings out shared traits in the other:
Traditional
Reliable
Private
Sensual
Honest
Comic
Romantic
Attentive
Loving
Caring
Dignified
Hygienic
Neat

2014... a good year.

The Ancient Chamber Pot of Azerbaijan

The girls only have a dozen or so DVDs here and they are growing bored with the same old stuff. In fact they've recently been branching out into my own collection - the majority are unsuitable and referred to as daddy's scary movies but Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back to the Future etc, are coming within range. Today I plundered the local Library catalogue and reserved the first three Harry Potter films for them, not my cup of tea, but I'll do my usual trick with 'DVD Shrink' and 'DVD Decrypter' and copy them so the girls can watch them forever and ever, amen.

 

***

Here is why men shouldn't buy bedding unsupervised. My favourite fitted Queen sheet needed a deputy, so I measured the bed, definitely Queen, 60" x 80" (that would be King in the UK; King in North America is sprawling, never mind the impressive acreage called Super King and California King!!) and I set off to do the rounds of Sears, Winners, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Wal-Mart. I handpicked a fitted cotton sheet for twenty dollars and two pillow cases for eight, chocolate brown, mmm.

 

So far so good. At home I discovered the new Queen pillow cases were a flapping seven inches too long for my puny Standard pillows. Several outings later I resigned myself to the fact there are no Standard pillow cases to be had these days. Bigheads abound I assume. So... I invested in two new Queen pillows. Later I ditched the girls' worn out Standard pillows and upgraded their entitlement to my serviceable cast-offs. What a palaver.

 

I don't have a duvet, just a comforter (known in the UK as a quilt). It's quite thin and akin to throwing an opened-up sleeping bag over you, but it's great for me even in winter (despite my lifelong habit of sleeping au naturel)! Well, I picked up a new comforter too and relegated the original to occasional duties. No problem on the size front and a snip at seventeen dollars!

***

I slipped over in the bath. To be precise I toppled from nearly standing to slung over the side of the bath tub. My ribcage took the full impact before I could break my fall. Initially I was shocked and winded, every ounce of breath gone. Surely I had punctured a lung or at least speared my spleen. After gingerly feeling for protruding organs I took a slow deep breath and realised I would probably live. That was two weeks ago and ever since I have winced and grunted and bemoaned my stupid clumsiness.

This week I tried a couple of longish runs, 10k and 15k. At first the bruised ribs grumbled but after a few minutes my natural endorphins started flowing and it was easier. I start marathon training in July and should be in fair shape by then.

the way we were

When you look in the mirror what do you see?

home is where the heart is

I run the risk that no one is interested or worse, disapproves, but the time has come to announce my return to Canada. Since the beginning of last December I have been living back in England. On one hand this has been a glorious opportunity to see my two grown sons, to live with my eldest son and enjoy his company. On the other hand, it has been an agonising period of absence from Michelle and Maisie. At first it was a divinely providential opportunity to be with my sons and support them while they mourned their mum, Debbie’s grave illness, but it immediately became apparent to me that I had made a worrying mistake.

It is not that I regret being with these two upright and positive young men, far from it; nor that I regret being at Debbie’s hospital bedside while she silently fought the deadly infection which poisoned her, reduced her to a shadow of the woman I spent thirty years with and came close to ending her time, far from it again. It is that I regret my hasty conviction in making this a permanent return. I should have allowed a proper dialogue in Canada; I should have listened; I should have stepped up to the mark; I should have realised the immense worth of what I was destroying.

After thrashing and deliberating, fretting and considering, I wrote, despite fearing the response. To cut a long story short and to spare the personal and excruciating details of many long-distance conversations I/we have reached my/our current position. I am deliberately removing the agony from this episode and also the ecstasy, for they are private emotions special to the participants.

On 27th February I fly from British shores to return to my family on Prince Edward Island, Canada! Needless to say, I am elated at the prospect and can hardly wait to embark on this next chapter of my life.

Thank you all for not judging. Thank you all for reading.

photographic personality test

I took a personality test which involved measuring accurately (with on-screen pointers) a dozen dimensions from a neutral photo of my face. After a series of questions the programme told me all about my personality. It makes very accurate reading I have to say.

Stability results were low which suggests you are very worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Orderliness results were very high which suggests you are overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense too often of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were low which suggests you are very reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

Trait snapshot:
depressed, introverted, neat, needs things to be extremely clean, observer, perfectionist, not self revealing, does not make friends easily, suspicious, irritable, hates large parties, follows the rules, worrying, does not like to stand out, fragile, phobic, submissive, dislikes leadership, cautious, takes precautions, focuses on hidden motives, good at saving money, solitary, familiar with the dark side of life, hard working, emotionally sensitive, prudent, altruistic, heart over mind, unadventurous.

Oh dear, that really is me.
PS: I have a thirteen-part short story ready to post so you may like to check back on Jan 1st.

seven random facts I've learned in sobriety

I was tagged by Fathorse.

1. Your bladder shrinks to the size of a pea in sobriety, perversely resulting in even more night time needs to piss.

2. At night my bed no longer flips slowly end over end, causing me to lean out and lay a hand on the carpet to stabilise the room.

3. Pruning a Juniper tree releases the powerful scent of pure gin.

4. It is not necessary to fall into a deep sleep at 7pm each evening.

5. Hospitals could save money by using Carlsberg Special Brew as a general anaesthetic.

6. I have saved £55,000 in 22 years, since quitting booze on 10 Sep 1993.*

7. You don't need to smoke when you stop drinking. So I saved a further £30,000 since 7 June 1997.*

* as at Oct 2015

tagged by fathorse

Thanks fathorse, btw I found your own answers fascinating and illuminating. Hilarious how we "B"s tread similar paths. Luckily you caught me with a slot in my busy schedule so here goes.

4 jobs I've held:

1. My first job was stacking shelves at Sainsburys Supermarket. I started while still at school, working Saturdays and holidays. It was there I met Debbie as we stamped prices on tins of sardines! I was sixteen and hadn’t a clue about anything. However it paid for rivers of booze. My head was in academia and selling food was the last thing that interested me.
2. After school I passed entrance exams to Oxford University but was rejected after three days of interviewing (in French would you believe). So I drifted into Banking and spent thirty years mostly hating it.
3. The best period in my banking career was the early 1980s. I had some superb colleagues in one particular high street branch who could have been successful at anything they chose. However we got pissed every lunchtime and every evening and despite running a tight and efficient office we took banking not at all seriously.
4. After decades of responsible roles like financial consultant, mortgage advisor and manager’s assistant I slid down the greasy pole as the jobs were all dumbed down. Like most of my colleagues I ended up at a shitty call centre taking calls from fools with idiotic queries.

4 places I've lived:

1. Born in Bournemouth on England’s sleepy southern coast. Old retired people live there and complain about the youngsters.
2. My dad was moved with work to Truro in Cornwall during the 1960s. We spent just two years there. I remember watching England win the World Cup and my sister was born.
3. We all moved back to Bournemouth and twenty years I struck out on my own with a new house and a new wife. Our boys were born and soon we moved to Dibden Purlieu in Hampshire some thirty miles away. I believe something once happened there but no one can seem to remember!
4. We lived in two nice houses there but all good things come to an end. I jumped ship in a big and (to my family) unfathomable way. I moved to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada where I have a gorgeous new wife and a whole new life.

4 places I've holidayed:

1. I used to drive my family to the French Alps every summer to stay in deserted skiing village. I can’t imagine being there when it snows.
2. Florida. I didn’t fly in an aircraft until I was forty-five for reasons linked with fear. However straight after 9/11 we jumped on a 747 and proceeded to do the same every year for the next five years, fear of flying duly conquered. Orlando was of course our first destination but thereafter we spent quiet time on the Gulf Coast in a subdivision called Rotonda, holidaying in those gorgeous luxury villas of theirs with a private pool.
3. USA road-trip. In 2005 I spent forteen days driving through Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and back to Georgia and staying in hotels. The variety was amazing and the best bit was staying off the Interstates and using the little county roads. A glimpse of real small town America.
4. Camping with my wife in the wilds of Cape Breton last week right by the Atlantic Ocean. Bears, Moose, wolves and eagles everywhere you turn.

4 favourite foods:

1. Baked beans on toast topped with melted grated cheese.
2. Poached salmon with peas and boiled new potatoes.
3. Tomato soup
4. Pills and a liquid would suit me fine when nutrition can be delivered that way. I am not a food connoisseur.

4 places I'd rather be:

1. Alaska
2. Antarctica
3. England
4. 10,000 miles away from civilisation

I don't have four people to tag so I'll just ask Michelle to join in. http://www.md1979.blogspot.com/

fifty

I need more strength. “Hand me down a strong panacea, one that’s guaranteed to make me feel like Hercules.”

Summer’s furnace roars and cranks. High blue sky towers above. The Island’s rock station crunches from the stereo. Let’s roll down the windows and cruise. Hay bales, cows, potholes and ancient Buicks slide by in a hazy panorama.

In the heat of the night nothing moves, not even the air. Sleep is further off than Pluto and the pillow sweats. Old memories return to taunt me. Synaptic connections tease and scold in the witching hour.

Soon I will pass the half-century milestone. Will I feel old? No, just the same – and still wondering how far past halfway I am. One thing is fairly sure – fewer solar orbits remain to me than have already passed.

September dawns are cool. A crispness hints at the big freeze to come. Time is running out. Soon we must batten down the hatches and hunker through the long white months. But before then we will journey to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The tent, stove and air mattress are all tested. The itinerary is planned. Un-noticed by most, a certain 50th milestone will slide by somewhere in the swirling blue waters off Bay Saint Lawrence while we are whale watching.

Soon too there is land to be bought, acres of grassy sanctuary in which to sink new roots. An investment into timber and fields. A house to refurbish and hammer into home. Lists of “to do” items stretch to the horizon – that’s far enough into the future for me.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

famous last words

Life caught up with me...

... the end.

Dive-bombed by herring gulls

(What shall I listen to? Old, new, borrowed or blue..?)

... must be a herring gull chick, he thought, taking in the dull brown plumage with the huge size. Wonder why its sitting in the middle of the road.

Doctor: “What seems to be the matter with you?”
PV: “Everything doc and I’ve got it bad.”
Doctor: “Want to talk about it?”
PV: “Nope. I prefer to shut my mouth and keep my thoughts to myself all day… like I always do.”
Doctor: “Well, keep taking the pills and I’ll see you when I see you.”
PV: "Rot in hell arsehole."

Is that a pterodactyl? An ominous 4 foot six wingspan silhouetted against the scudding rain clouds made him fantasize Jurassically for a moment. With Kamikaze yells the shape plummeted toward him, veering aside at the last moment. Fuck, it’s the parent bird protecting its strayed young. Repeatedly it screamed in low and fast with raptor-like talons outstretched. Hey even the wildlife has it in for me…

It’s all downhill from here pal. You’re 49 and your best years are long over. The doc doesn’t give a damn, the world isn’t waiting for you, the gulls are suspicious of you…

He held similar conversations in his head all day. His favourites were about guilt, shame and self-recrimination. He did a good job of chastising himself. That seemed a more effective use of time than waiting for someone else to do it.

I won’t bother talking to you unless I love you, he said to no one in particular. I want to live on a desert island. He had a big heart and a head full of compassion but people barged into him in the street like he was invisible. How could he ever talk to people who were so oblivious to his sweet nature? He needed to be alone, that was the stark truth of it.

Some idiot shrink had told him, try to think of all the good things you have achieved. You have so much to be grateful for and proud of. He had never bought that. He was way off course for his usual lunchtime walk, even the gulls sensed that. The time on his wrist was well past lunch but he kept walking. Today he would make a decision.

He had a sharp plot for a novel in his head but he kept chipping away at it til all that was left was a series of fragments. Perhaps he would try piecing them together again soon.

SHUT UP! he screamed at the voices in his head. If the fools at work had only known how my depression and anxiety was crippling my physical health. Why had he never shrieked this to the banking fools, There is nothing wrong with my mental fortitude but you are hammering a square peg into a round hole and I won’t fit. I will last as long as I can but the strain you are placing on my emotional health is directly reducing my physical health. My immune system is failing – I am getting sick. It is not possible to be this miserable in my head for decades and for it to have no effect on my body.

With this admission at least now he would have a few things to say to the doc next time he went. Now, where the hell did I park my car?

Tagged by Grace

Thanks Grace, I'll take any excuse to think about music! These sprang immediately to mind but an hour from now the list would be different...

1. Street Spirit - Radiohead
2. Sweet Child of Mine - Guns n' Roses
3. Green Eyes - Coldplay
4. Time for Heroes - The Libertines
5. Guiding Light - The Veils
6. Five Years - David Bowie
7. Common People - Pulp

A variety of heads

The man was adept at injuring himself and today he decided to take it to the limit. He approached the huge engineer’s vice in his garage workshop, brushing back his hair. The vice jaws yawned open as he span the fat T-bar easily. Like bobbing for apples in a bowl he pressed his head down until his nose touched cold iron. Now he wound the bar slowly clockwise, feeling the first pressure on his temples. As he turned the bar hard, high-pitched singing screamed in his ears momentarily. A loud crack silenced the sound and his vision was suddenly blurred. He stood uncertainly and lurched onto his driveway and reached with horror to feel his shattered head. Waves of nausea flooded over him as he fumbled for thoughts, would anyone notice him now…

**********
His bed felt cold and the pillow hard as stone. Where were the red digits of his alarm clock? “Hypothermia on the rocks please…” he mumbled to no one through stiff lips. Tomorrow morning paramedics would melt his cheek from the frozen sidewalk and lift his stiff corpse. His very good friends would laugh when they remembered Saturday. How he had drunk a whole bottle of scotch through his fucking nose. His eyes had been bleeding as he staggered onto the sidewalk. “If I get tired I’ll just lay down.” He tapped the side of his nose confidentially at the lamppost.

**********
You would never guess this suited gent had just lost his job, his house, his family and his wealth. He was in control now that every sensitive word in the books on self-development had prepared him for his predicament. He knew he was in a good place in his head. Life would be sweet and fair to him because he had given more then he had to give. A red-nosed beggar muttered from the pavement. The suit found two coins in his pocket and pressed them wordlessly into the beggar’s brown hand. Now he turned sharply to cross the street. A bus ploughed into him and dragged him eighty yards along the road leaving a long thin red streak.

Tagged by Doughgirl

6 Weird things about me.......

1. I have six wrist watches but don't wear any of them.

2. I was too scared to fly in a plane until I was forty-five. I have flown every year since then and this year I have made ten take-offs and landings, the final one in an eighteen seat aircfraft.

3. I smooth all bank notes in my wallet and spend the dirty ones first, saving the crispest little beauties for last.

4. At 30mph in my car I shift into top gear, whereas on a motor cycle I am still accelerating hard in first gear. (Actually that's not so weird!)

5. When I climb a staircase I always count the number of steps.

6. This year I switched from wearing exclusively white socks to exclusively black socks (with denim.)

The Remedy

Nature is notoriously parsimonious with pleasure so many try to engineer their own. Throughout recorded time humans have sought a higher level of happiness to soften the hard edges of life. Lush leaves in Amazonian jungles have long competed with fiery liquids distilled from grain. The trouble is, chemical stimulants have a woefully short-lived effect on mood. Mind-altering they may be, but not for long.

I wanted a happiness molecule, a slice of hormone pie. "Anyone know how this hypothalamus works?" I might have shouted. "How do I dial up more Adrenaline, Testosterone or Serotonin?" Many years ago I swallowed a big daily ration of liquid brewed from hops to numb my pain and distort reality into something more sufferable. I chose to swamp my brain’s natural chemical balance rather than try to understand it. "Hey bartender, gimme a pint of Endorphin!"

I read but failed to grasp the wise words of philosophers who spoke of the courage to change what I can, the strength to accept what I can’t and the wisdom to distinguish between the two. I was miserable at work, at home and at play but instead of addressing those issues and developing solutions I drank the day away and pretended tomorrow was light years away.

What I really wanted was steady and reliable happiness but my immature mind and undeveloped aspirations had not figured out the most effective solution. Oh, and I was also waiting for a certain someone to be born and grow up, although I didn’t know that then…

***
In 2006 these events have happened to me concurrently.

Divorce
Early retirement
Major change in life habits
Sons leaving home
Sale of house
Emigration

I show signs of anxiety but they pass. Matters beyond my control still frustrate me but I take a deep breath. In my thirties I would have collapsed under the weight but approaching fifty I have somehow acquired the strength to cope with these experiences.

I wonder if you can ever proclaim you are cured of the thought processes associated with addiction but certainly the evil seed can be rendered dormant or even impotent. Skills acquired during sobriety form a foundation and it is up to us what we build on it. For many years I regarded building that foundation as my sole objective.

My long march through time took me through bland countryside, along narrow, mundane roads. I saw the horizon but distant panoramic vistas remained just that. I existed in a world of waiting, strengthening my foundation. Eventually I had put sufficient time and distance between me and my youthful demons for enthusiasm and interest to raise their sleeping heads. I began looking more closely at my surroundings.

True, I had achieved some stability and reached a plateau of comfort. But there must be more than this, oh so much more…

***

I had tricked myself into believing I was waiting only for some catalyst to explode me from my rut but in truth I had been prepared for longer than I thought. When love came she arrived hard and fast without warning but I was ready. No respecter of age or geography she wrenched me into a new life of excitement and potential, a beautiful life in which two souls can live like one.

Every day a natural chemical rush tells me this is life and how it should be lived.

"All I want is 20/20 vision
A total portrait with no omissions
All I want is a vision of you"
Blondie – Picture This

Night/day dream-mare

I am working on something new but it may be a while in gestation. To fill the void here is something from a year ago which many will not have seen. Those that have may notice some modifications.

Sometimes my mind drifts and I think with piercing clarity.

a million people stand in my way
iridium lenses shield against eye contact
a beautiful barrier
minding my own business
incessant conversations in my skull
words I can’t speak
drag a finger along the railings to pick up germs
frigid freezing fridge magnet
i’m not talking to you
reflections in a window resolve into the view beyond
everyone else is needlessly boring
a different journey on new roads
treading water, not waving but drowning
supposedly intelligent actually retarded
a rice pudding with tender skin
what fucking saviour?
hatred fatigue
do you know that Artesian well
walk the wing of a 747 eight miles high
leap from the 48th
main line de-sensitising agents
tea and toast
hell of a holiday
is anyone sitting here?
dry properly between your toes
rotting red road-kill
angelic choir church and steeple
charisma bypass or character transplant
10 million seconds to live, equals -
3 months to die
it is now safe to switch off your computer
3,000
precious people prefer private promises
taking the utmost care
barrel pressed to temple
happy angry sad desperate
rules for archiving and destruction
report unattended baggage
i so badly want to drink an Ocean, so badly
eyes wide, ears flat
take me to your leader dealer
fuck forever
wireless trip wire
portent omen sign harbinger prophecy
alive at least
Bonus Random Thoughts
one spot doesn’t make a rash
a marathon not a sprint
worldwide patent pending
talisman
taliswoman
forever young and drop-dead gorgeous
fighting a fight with maturity
devastatingly dignified and sheer class
intellectual intimacy
The Kick Inside
got to promise not to stop when I say, “when”
living on an island
swim out past the breakers
watch the world die
chainsaw through growth rings
hope I’m old before I die
naked and sticky…
… under protective leather
armour-plated sensitivity
thunderous rock n’ roll
sweet mown grass
searing blue sky
scorching rays
summer madness