Classic Spring Weather And Some Good News.

Henri Rouseau


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau


Classic spring weather today on the last day of March, it is cold and very windy with some angry looking clouds and the occasional beautiful flash of sunshine.

The wind is very brisk and cold, there has been rain, snow and hail and then rain again all interspersed with flashes of sunshine for second’s sometimes even minutes.

I am hoping that the better weather will happen next week as I think this unsettled weather may carry on until the weekend.

Had quite a day today, had Annalies, my consultant from ARCA here today, she brought someone, called Jon from Revacore, the company that supply the equipment.

This was to see if they can adapt my shower chair, as it is too big for me and I hang to the right.

Apparently they can provide extra support, so I should be seeing Harry their support specialist in three weeks time which is good news.

So a successful meeting today.

As soon as Annalies and Jon left Richie whisked me out of bed and into the bathroom and under the shower.

Managed to do some of my leg exercises then Richie put me back into bed ready for Ton and Dr. Smit’s visit a t 17 pm.

They arrived later than we thought at 1 7.25 pm just when we thought they were not coming today.

Glad they did get here today, as the doctor could tell us that the wound was healing well, Doctor Smit says it should be healed in 2 weeks time.

Soon after I should be able to sit again this is a brilliant perspective, we are both very happy.

So by the time that the weather is getting nice I should be mobile again and able to enjoy going out.

I am very happy at this prospect.

We Shall See.

Pablo Picasso.


Got Richie to video me doing my morning arm exercises, they may not look like much but these exercises have given me back some serious upper arm muscles.

Just before I started doing the arm exercises I had suddenly noticed that my arms had become scarily thin, and muscle seemed to be non existent.

Since I have been doing them every morning for 30 minutes, I do 12 exercises and repeat each exercise 12 times, the difference is noticeable.

It is amazing how effective the exercises are, which is excellent, as a small daily input gives me such a good return.

Today Richie got me out of bed and to the shower in a smooth and quick operation which went well.

Once in the shower he trimmed my hair, something that I find takes a long time but once it is done, it feels great and looks good too.

Spike and Marleen always do their best to be at their cutest and most playful just as Richie is busy with me, even now in his box Spike will do his best to get our attention.

Which he gets from all of us, he has been in good form and even better since his appointment with the orthopaedic vet yesterday.

Great to hear from Richie how pleased the vet was with Spike’s progress, he is about 5 days ahead of where the vet thought he would be.

Richie was given the advice to walk him as slow as possible to encourage him to walk slowly and calmly on the leg that has been operated on.

Spike being him has devised his own routine, which is he hangs back and does not keep up with Richie and then catches him up by charging on his three legs.

What can you do with a dog called Spike apart from marvel at his antics and his adaptations and his amazing spirit, he is a fine dog.

Still no sunshine today, it is cloudy, dull and cold with outbreaks of drizzly rain and no sign of the weather becoming nicer before the end of the afternoon.

Who knows it could become pleasant weather tomorrow we shall see.





Modern Lovers: Pablo Picasso.

A New Day.Means New Chances.

Karel Appel.

Someone has just sent me a comment in Face Book asking me if I had ever heard about Lions Mane Mushrooms and the possibility of it healing our myelin?

This was something I had never heard of before so I looked on the internet and found this link
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hericium_erinaceus

The research is interesting and seems to say that nerve cells can be stimulated and it also stimulates myelination

‘’ Hericium erinaceus research
In traditional Chinese medicine this mushroom has long been considered a medicinal mushroom and a study on rats in 2005 showed that some compounds in the mushroom, like threitol, D-arabinitol, and palmitic acid may have antioxidant effects, may regulate blood lipid levels and may reduce blood glucose levels.[1]
Ying (1987) reports that pills of this mushroom are used in the treatment of gastric and esophageal carcinoma.
Scientists have investigated this mushroom for possible anti-dementia compounds. Primary research has demonstrated the following.
• Stimulated animal nerve cells.[2]
• A double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial showed improved cognitive ability. [3]
• Stimulated nerve growth factor in an in vitro experiment with human astrocytoma cells. [4]
• Stimulated myelination in an in vitro experiment. ‘’

Very interesting. indeed, the only question is how much would you have to eat and would it be daily.

Wonder if a cup a cup of mushroom soup a day would help to remyelinate our nerves.
It sounds wonderfully simple.

Too simple almost, would be great I think if something so simple could help restore the protection of my nerves.

Think that I want to find out more about these mushrooms, might ask Richie to look out for them when he next goes to the Chinese shop.

Today has been another cloudy day with some dark clouds looking like there might be plenty of rain.

Hope the rain blows away and we get some nice bright days for the rest of the week.

Spike went to the orthopaedic vet to have his stitches taken out; the vet was very pleased with his progress.

The wound is healing extremely well; the next appointment is on 28 April when the plan is for Richie to take Marleen too and let the dogs celebrate with a charge around in the Vondelpark on the way home.

It has been a good day despite the weather not being nice spring weather.

Who knows tomorrow is another day; a new day means new chances.

Greeves 250 cc Sport Motorbike

Richie and I stayed up very late last night we were having a great time looking at pictures of Greeves Motorcycles.

It was very nice to see the pictures of some of the models that the Greeves Motorcycle Company made.

I had a 250 cc Greeves Sports, two stroke; it was a great motorbike, I was incredibly lucky to get mine from a motorcycle enthusiast.

He sold it to me for the grand sum of 20 pounds in 1973, recall he was extremely pleased that I wanted to buy it.

In 1973 the bikes that were becoming popular were the Japanese bikes which were streamlined or people rode established British bikes like Triumph Bonneville or BSA or Norton.

When I just had the bike I recall that the first couple of times that I had a go, that I could not change gear and drove around in first gear.

It was a big day when I changed up into second gear and back down to first in order to stop.

Luckily I found a motor cycle training course where I and a large group of other people were taught how to ride our bikes.

They also showed us how to do the maintence on our motor bikes, there was a shed where we watched the tutor strip down and reassemble a motor bike.

It was an excellent course, one where I met and made new friends, the people helping out on the course were members of a local Triumph Owner’s Motorcycle Club.

They were a great bunch of people and I had good fun and splendid times with the Triumph Owner’s Club.

The best memories are of going to the Isle of Man to see the TT Races, and to the local speedway and local scrambling events.

Fine memories now.








1960's classic scramble / motocross event.
Murray Walker commentary.

The riders are Jeff Smith Dave Bickers Lampkin and Rickman were racing on Greeves BSA Triumph 500cc 250cc and 440cc machines.






A video recording the Greeves Motorcycles 50th Annivesary at Battlesbridge, including a road run to the old factory building at Thundersley.
A video recording the Greeves Motorcycles 50th Annivesary at Battlesbridge, including a road run to the old factory building at Thundersley.

Spring Flowers.

The flowers yesterday really brightened up the room; they are doing the same today.

Darling Richie made my day getting the mini daffodils.

They are a flower that I am very fond of, love seeing daffs in March; they are for me the personification of spring.

He put the spring flowers and the lavender by the window in the front room so they could catch the morning sun.

That was successful, even though there was not much sun when Richie opened the curtains at this morning.

There was a glimmer which was the first signs of the daffodils in the trough starting to bloom.

Think the daffodils should be flowering by Wednesday next week which will be charming for Easter weekend.

That reminds me of Easter two years ago, when I wanted an Easter egg, but kept saying to Richie ‘ach don’t worry about Easter egg as a bar is much better value’.

What I did not realise was that I kept telling Richie this and he quickly came to the conclusion that I desperately wanted an Easter egg.

If I had said it just the once, Richie may have believed, but after he heard me say this more than 5 times, he thought it was abit of a giveaway.

So he got one, a Green and Black’s egg which was very pretty and looked good and tasted even better.

What I especially like is the fact the chocolate is fair-trade which means workers and not slaves.

Before I take a bite into a chocolate bar, I do stop to think about who grew the cacao that made my chocolate bar.



If it is not Fair Trade chocolate then it is possibly one of the more than 15,000 child slaves who work on cacao farms in West Africa.

Does that chocolate still taste good? No it won’t, certainly not for me, so I will not buy it.

Lucky for me there is a whole food shop 5 minutes away from our apartment so I can enjoy a couple of cubes of chocolate daily.

Looking forward to watching the football later on the TV, it is getting very exciting now as the end of the football season approaches rapidly.

Hope that my team, Arsenal do very well, but will have to wait and see.

In the meantime I am enjoying today.

Sunshine Today Mostly Inside.

Not the beautiful sunshine like the past few days, between 10 and 11 there was abit of sunshine from behind the clouds but sadly no direct sun today it is grey and it is raining now.

But I do not mind too much, as there was a glimmer of sun again when I emerged very relaxed from the shower.

Richie got the Motomed from the other room and once my feet were strapped in he had a great surprise for me.

Yesterday he went to the garden centre and bought some spring flowers, and planted up two troughs of spring flowers, in the room so now I have daffodils, primulas, pansies, lavender and outside behind Spike pansies and primulas.

He also got me a beautiful yellow orchid, the little yellow flowers look to me like little yellow butterflies, and it is lovely.

The flowers are really gorgeous and the lavender smells very nice and the three roses that Cecile gave me for my birthday are even prettier next to the other plants.

And the hibiscus that Willes, our wonderful neighbour gave me for my birthday looks even better with the other plants.

Makes the bedroom look so much nicer, really feels like spring has come now and when the daffodils blossom it will have really arrived for me.

Not long after I was back in bed Marianne came to visit and brought some sunshine with her,
hearing her ring the bell got the dogs going, they went mad when they heard her voice.

Spike is in good form, hard to believe it is only a week since the operation, but he is almost putting his foot on the ground already.

The wound is healing well and looks healthy, the stitches will be taken out on Monday, by next week Friday he should be able to have the plastic bucket taken off his head.

It is wonderful the progress Spike has made in just one week, especially after how terrible the aftermath of the anaesthetic was for the little dog.

Very impressed with how cheerful Spike has been and how well and quickly he adapted to running on 3 legs.

He also demonstrated how clever he is, he uses the plastic head bucket to scoop up his biscuit and or crumbs if they drop out of his mouth.

So despite lack of sunshine outside there was plenty inside today for me.