A different day

There's a line from Chaucer's 'The Knight's Tale' (I think) which I have always liked, 'Up roos the sonne, and up roos Emelye'. This morning was one of those mornings, and 'Up rose the sun, and up rose Jane'. It felt as if spring was back - and it's been a sunlit day ever since. I know every day is sunlit technically, but today the sky was blue. And eventually Jane prised me out of bed.

She went and helped with Riding for the Disabled (RDA) in the morning while I worked slowly on my laptop, writing. Then it was off to Oxford - which is best enjoyed in the sunshine - for a picnic by Port Meadow - well in a carpark next to it to be precise, just round the corner from where Jane had once had digs with the marvellous Miss Pollak. That was when we were engaged; so you might say it's an site of special sentimental interest. Anyway that was just the hors d'oeuvre. The next course was coffee and 'cakes' at Maison Blanc on the Woodstock Road with our friends James and Jo, who are training to be vicars.... Jo had assured me that despite its connections with M. Raymonde Blanc it wouldn't break the bank. And she was right. My only disappointment was that they didn't have the réligieuses I'd remembered from when we lived up the road, but I got over it and had a mousse cassis instead, a round creation too complicated to explain but not too difficult to consume. Délicieux!

The other excitement of the day was the fish. As you know, I'm missing the chickens a bit, but Jane is right, of course; they would have ruined our small garden. However, there is a pond in it. So on our way home we stopped off at Millets Garden Centre and bought six small goldfish, some pondweed and fish-flakes (what they like for breakfast) - and before tea with Rachel's expert advice (she knows about animals) we launched them. I'm not sure they'll provide as much entertainment as the hens, and of course not the eggs. But I hope they'll enjoy our company - as long, that is, that no marauding egrets or herons terminate their existence prematurely.

Going on air

This afternoon I did an interview for the Torch Trust's Insight programme (4 pm Sundays on Premier Radio). I'll let my Facebook man know when it's going to be on. I'm delighted to hear that Torch are producing 'My Donkeybody' in braille, large print, audio-book and on daisy-format CDs. I trust that my story will help and even entertain other people who have something major to contend with. Meanwhile I am just beginning to get back to writing. Maybe it is spring (which seems to have had a bit of a relapse). I hope it will continue.

Solid joys

I'm grateful to Stephen, commenting on my last post, for a fascinating link about Gavin Peacock, a former Chelsea footballer. I recommend it. I guess he would disagree with Bill Shankly, the late great Liverpool manager, saying football is much more serious than life and death. Peacock reckons there's something more lasting and more satisfying than football glory, and is taking radical steps to pursue it. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article616409)

One of my minor joys here is seeing mums from this estate setting off after 3 o'clock and returning half an hour later with their children from primary school. I'm just so glad for those children that they have that routine and, I assume, security with it. I suspect there are subconscious memories buried in me of my school days which ended in the seemingly ever present welcome of my mother. I'm sure that survival is possible without, but I'm as sure that it makes for childhood happiness. I guess dads would do too, though maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I think there must be something about the person who's carried, nursed and fed you.

By the way, rumour has it that a little egret has been spotted in Grove. (They're the white heron-like bird which I associate with the south of France and Egypt, which have been moving their habitat northwards - ? a sign of global warming.) Meanwhile a less welcome migrant has landed in Britain, I hear tonight, in the form of swine 'flu. One would hope that the message would penetrate rather thick human skulls that we CANNOT manage the world's forces (whether 'flu or finance) on our own, and that we'd spend some time reflecting on our limits and admitting, like Gavin Peacock, that we'd do better to live in reference to the divine.

Give them their due

You may remember I wasn't best pleased when I was informed the delivery men couldn't put up the wardrobe we'd ordered from M & S, because there wasn't room, and I threatened to write to Sir Stuart Rose, the executive chairman. Well, I did do that. I wrote about the inadequacy of their delivery conditions for a disabled person. A day later we had a phone call from the delivery department wanting to arrange a new date. Could we manage 25th April? We could and we checked that they'd gathered we had altered the order. A day later we had another call from a young man in Sir Stuart's troubleshooting department. He was very sorry about the problem we'd had. In future if we had any further difficulties, would we phone him on his personal line? Another call followed from the delivery team. So yesterday we got a phone call saying the van was on its way. This time the two guys were very helpful. And Jane has at last been able to empty the next lot of packing cases. I believe the young man will be ringing us tomorrow to check that we're happy. I'm not suggesting deluging Sir Stuart with letters, but it did show, to me at least, what a difference a good manager can make.

I suppose, sadly, that's what we saw yesterday with the remarkable turn-around in Manchester United's fortunes against Spurs aided with a dubious penalty after half-time. Give Sir Alex his due - I imagine his half-time talk was a joy to hear! And then there's Guus Hiddink, Chelsea's new boss, who's turned them round since he's arrived. And though Jensen Button is clearly a talented driver, I suspect Ross Brawn is the significant factor in their F1 team.

Thinking of Chelsea I was sad to see that Frank Lampard, a footballer I much admire, has split up with his partner, Elen Rives. I saw a link on the BBC website to him ringing in to London Broadcasting Co's DJ, James O'Brien, who had described him as 'scum' for leaving Elen and their two kids. It wasn't a 'rant' as the Times on line terms it (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article6161967.ece), but it was a thoroughly articulate (and angry) denunciation of gutter journalism's treatment of people in the public gaze. It is so easy to assume the worst, and to forget that such people have the same human feelings (and failings) as the rest of us. 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' said the offended Shylock. Lampard accused O'Brien of being an idiot for not understanding that and for imagining him immune to the pain of the separation. I think Jesus would have simply said, 'Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.'

Spring is sprung

Yesterday morning I dreamed I was listening to Lord Peter Mandelson; and then I woke up and discovered it was only a pigeon cooing. Conclude what you will!

However this morning I woke up at 4.30 to a full-throated dawn chorus. I have to say that there seemed as much variety here in semi-urban Grove as in rural Stanford in the Vale, blackbirds and robins of course, but a lot more beside. Then from the distance came a cuckoo calling. The first of the year. Meanwhile during the daytime birds have been busy collecting material for nesting: starlings pulling dead leaves from the sedge beside the pond, collared doves scuttling around the newly dug flower bed, sparrows, blackbirds and even goldfinches. I was thinking about the number of birds we've seen in the garden since moving - blue and long-tailed tits, greenfinches, wood pigeons, sparrow-hawk, as well the others. Quite impressive for a 40 foot square garden. I reckon it's quite a compensation for the lack of chickens.

I heard yesterday the extraordinary assertion that 50% of UK adults live with a hiatus hernia. Which is reassuring since a member of our family has had one diagnosed. Talking of health matters, it's good news that Stephen Hawkinge is on course to make a 'full' recovery having been taken into hospital with a chest infection. It's a complication that people with MND are especially aware of, because of course your breathing gets progressively weaker with the disease. So I think the Metro newspaper's cartoon with its caption, 'I wonder if they've tried switching him off and switching him on again', was in the worst taste. Clearly neither the cartoonist nor the editor had empathy with or understanding of MND. As I commented on Sunday, it's not that those with MND lack humour. But philosophically it reinforces the contemporary fallacy that humans are mere machines. Professor Hawkinge and the MND patients I met at the weekend are living disproof of that.

Saying sorry

As you may have seen from the comment on my last entry, Lightwriters now have a facility for an English accent (as well as texting to and from mobile phones), which is good news for us posh people! So I'm sorry to have misled you.

'Sorry' has been in the news recently. 'Say sorry,' chant the opposition to the Prime Minister, 'Just say sorry!' For things as large as the global economy collapsing like a pack of cards, and for things as obscure as an email from one of his advisers to a crony (Messrs MacBride and Draper) plotting a dirty blog campaign smearing the Tories. Apparently personal letters of regret were insufficient. It's a bit reminiscent of the playground. Pinned against the tarmac the offender is told, 'Say Sorry. Are you sorry? Say you're really truly grovellingly sorry. Say you'll never do it again. Say it louder - so we all can hear... What are you?...'. And you know what? As you watch, you begin to wonder who's really in the wrong.

Today, I'm sparing a thought for Messrs Brown and Darling. I know going in to politics was their choice. But, to be fair, theirs is one TOUGH job (or rather two tough jobs).

Spring Conference

Today we went to the MNDA Spring Conference in Taunton. I used to avoid them, until two years ago, I think because I was frightened of being depressed by seeing others with the disease. It's odd, isn't it, how one thinks one's different, when actually all of us are as human as each other? Of course, there are different types and stages of the disease - and so there were today; but we were all in the same boat. And, strangely, it was encouraging rather than depressing, even though I was aware that some of the delegates would have died before next spring. I guess about a third of us had MND, a third were 'carers', and a third connected in other ways with the association. I have to say the MNDA does well by us in such events. It was in a Holiday Inn; the lunch and tea were good (see above). The talks were informative, but the best thing was talking to others and carers in similar situations. There were such nice people there. One staff member of the association mentioned the proposition that nice people are particularly prone to MND - a dangerous and specious idea, it seems to me. It's a post hoc, propter hoc argument, as WW lovers will understand. It's more likely, I think, that when disaster strikes in the form of the diagnosis you just become more aware of others in similar or different trouble, and more grateful for kindness received.

I actually found people inspiring as well. There wasn't a pervasive sense of self-pity. A number of people had lost the ability of speech, and communicated by writing or the famous Lightwriter which synthesises a voice (like Prof Hawkinge's) from a souped up keyboard. (By the way it's about time they came up with some familiar English accents in text-speech programs.) Some people were facing a whirlwind assault from the disease, whereas others were waging a protracted war of attrition. But everyone was intensely interested in the latest research, not so much for themselves but for those who'd be afflicted in years to come. And people hadn't lost their humour. We were discussing the new idea of personal care budgets (meant to give control to 'stakeholders' over purchasing their own 'care packages'. Anyone who's read my book (or met my fab OT and physio) will know how blissfully happy I am with those caring for me, and I personally think it's a daft idea. Anyway, Ray who was on our table and using a lightwriter made the comment, 'If Gordon Brown can't manage a budget, how do they think we'll do it?'

Then we headed home on the M5, joining all the holiday-makers travelling home after the holiday, which was fine until we got near Weston-super-Mare, when everything ground to a halt. In due course an ambulance zoomed past on the hard shoulder and a helicopter buzzed overhead. The sun was shining; people were relaxed, walking and chatting; with one or two exceptions it was England at its endearing best. An hour later, we began to move again. It wasn't long before we were home, sufficiently stimulated for me to try downloading the photos on my mobile on to my newly acquired PowerBook via Bluetooth! A first for me, the result of which you see above.