I’m back
I hope !
Posts may be a bit infrequent for a
while but with good fortune and a following wind Scriptor Senex has the writing
bug again.
A banana
a day keeps the doctor away…
For fifteen days at the end of June,
start of July, I lay in bed and hardly moved.
I didn’t read. I didn’t listen to music.
I just lay there, in pain, exhausted and depressed. Gradually over the last few days I have
picked myself up again. But this is
what it feels like.
And the
steamroller stays on you. It just lies
on top of you defying your every effort to move until you finally give up and
accept you aren’t getting up again.
Somehow the basic instinct not to wet or dirty the bed survives (thank
Heaven) and you pull yourself along the wall to the toilet when you need it. I tried having a bath a few times to see if
that would enervate me but just ended up back in bed.
Then
one day I went out into the garden in the early morning. I was dizzy and disorientated, being up for
the first time for over a fortnight. I
can’t recall how I managed to get up and ended up in the garden. But the sun was just rising, the birds were
singing and the garden was flourishing with flowers that hadn’t been out when I
my body packed up in June. I sat on the
patio and dead-headed some of the flowers in the pots there. Partner-who-loves-tea arrived with a cup of
tea and life suddenly seemed a bit more copeable with. (I know there is no such word as copeable,
thank you Spillchucker, but it suits me to invent it for this purpose!)
Since
then I have een my counsellor. I have had coffee out. I have been to a garden centre and bought
some plants and bird foods (retail therapy!).
Passion Flower and Solanum –
climbers for the new arch through the natural hedge.
And, more importantly in terms of contribution to the household, I have put a
couple of washes on and dried the clothes in the garden on our new rotary airer.
Who knows what I might get up to
tomorrow?
Richard
was happy to cook me a dinner every day and although I did try to eat
it I just found the effort too much on many days. A shame after his kindness and hard work but
I ended up living on bananas. They are
so easy to eat. No effort involved
though I did (seriously) find it hard to peel one of them! I have
now discovered that according to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst
people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana.
This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body
converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and
generally make you feel happier. An article in The Mind Unleashed in February 2014 gave a lot of other ways in
which bananas can benefit your health.
It’s a shame that Jo is allergic to them! Especially since Richard uses the juicer to
make a super ice-cream-like dessert that is composed purely of banana.
Best wishes
During
my time off-line I have had many good wishes in many forms from friends far and
wide. Postcards have arrived with
cheering themes and messages. Who could
not smile when this arrived from Katya in Ukraine?
E-mails arrived and although most were not read until a day or so ago I already
knew the people writing them would have done so. It’s very humbling that folk from as far and
wide as Barbados and Bulgaria were thinking of me.
And Washington
Bear arrived. He joins Teddy who has no
name other than Teddy but is a much loved chap who sits on the landing watching
us pass to and fro. Teddy
was a present from Jo a few years ago after I had commented that I had always
wanted a teddy and could not recall ever having one. This is
Washington.
As Washington’s donor said ‘Who
can look at a teddy and not smile?’
He sits
on my chair downstairs and helps me read the postcards. At first I was a bit concerned that he couldn’t
read properly but we’ve since discovered he’s slightly short-sighted.
One of
the e-mails that affected me most is self-explanatory –
Dear John,
You don't know me. I just discovered your blog
"Rambles from my Chair" while researching the line "Twould ring
the bells of Heaven". I'd been re-reading the Armand Gamache series by
Louise Penny, a Canadian writer, who used it in one of her books. (I learn more
new things this way!)
Anyway, I subscribed to your blog and was sorry that my
first receipt was "I'm Offline." I can't pretend to know what you are
going through. We all go through "it" but the forms vary and you are
visiting some hard times. I just wanted you be aware that I wish you well and
will hold you in my thoughts. The world is such a rough place both physically
and psychologically. But remember that our world is also in a state of constant
flux so bad times change (eventually) into something else. Compassion and
caring are out there.
No need to reply. Just wanted you to know that someone in
the US is wishing you well.
Just
reading that again as I put it in this blog posting makes my body tingle. There are some very caring people out there!
So thank
you everyone and I shall try not to worry you again for a while…
