Monday In April.

The Pleading Butcher. 1948.
Peter Purves Smith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Purves_Smith

It was another lovely sunny day today, which was lovely to see out of the window, great for my sense of well being.

My physiotherapy session with the lovely Mathilde wa good, despite the fact that my right arm was painfully stiff.

Really difficult to stretch my arm out to touch my head as my elbow can’t bend or allow my arm to go higher than my nose.

Doing that is a huge effort for me, the second time we did that, I only just managed to touch my nose.

After the session I was exhausted, a sandwich and a fruit shake really helped me to feel better

again.

This evening Angela, a good friend from  England phoned me, it was good to catch up with her life, which sounded hectic.

We met at Hillcroft College in 1991, when I returned to full time education, at the age of 40, she was only 22

The age difference, didn’t stop us becoming best friends, we just clicked, meeting each other was one of the best things to happen at Hillcroft.

Tonight has been dreadful, I can not sit well ant typing is painfully difficult, almost impossible, hope  Ican post this.                    

            

  

           

                                                                 

 

A Sunny Friday In April.

The Pond.
Peter Purves Smith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Purves_Smith

Beautiful sunny Friday, just the start of the afternoon now and I hope it is getting warmer too.

Should be 23 degrees tomorrow and Sunday which if true will be nice to go out in.

Looking forward to going out over this weekend and feel the sun on my face, which will be so good to feel.

Especially as my skin has got dry, flaky from lack of sun and air on my face, the sun this weekend should help me lots.

Before I have a shower I want to find a green rubber duck for Cyril, as his favourite toy is pretty much wrecked now.

I shall also look for tie dye t –shirts for myself and black trousers for Richie, hope I find a green duck for Cyril as he sleeps with it.

The duck is his security blanket, he gets it before he jumps up on Richie’s bed, and he won’t go until he finds it.

Looking forward to getting my finery on and being out in the sunshine with my darling Richie.

He has gone off to do the shopping now, so we can enjoy going out tomorrow just for fun, I can hardly wait for tomorrow.

  

Saturday, 2, April, 2011. A Wonderful Warm Sunny Saturday

James Gleeson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gleeson

It was wonderful today, blue skies, sunny and 20 degrees, so this afternoon we went out to enjoy the warm weather.

I went out wearing jogging pants, a t-shirt and my lovely big red fleece top and my fingerless black gloves.

It was wonderful to be outside in the sunshine, we went to the Ten Cate market with the dogs who loved being out with us both, they were excited, especially about going to the market.

It was great being there and seeing all the people and the stalls with their fruit, vegetables, clothes, a riot of colours and smells..

Saw some of the stall holders that I know from the days when I went there every week with Richie.

This was my first visit to the market this year; I managed to get there once last year in October and noticed many changes today.

Such as several new stalls, two selling fruit, one selling gorgeous plants and a Greek stall who had taramasalata which I like very much, but have never seen here before.

I thoroughly enjoyed going out especially as I managed to get to the market and most of the way back in my own, then Richie took over.

A wonderful afternoon and one which I intend to repeat as often as possible, and we will, I plan to go out every day now springis here.

Rumours Of Sunshine.

Assger Jorn.

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


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_%28avant-garde_movement%29

Yesterday was sunny which was nice for my cousin Katrin’s visit; she has been visiting twice a year since I had to stay in bed in August 2008.

Every time she was here it was cold, grey rainy and cloudy, so yesterday was very pleasant for her for a change.

It was something of a revelation for her, funny to think that there has never been nice weather here on any of her visits, apparently also never on earlier visits to Amsterdam either.

Seems she expects Amsterdam to be grey, cloudy and raining, guess we get a very changeable climate as we are so close to the sea here.

Wonderfully the mosquitoes seem to have stopped earlier this year probably because the summer was so bad.

Last year we were sleeping under our mosquito nets until November but this year we have not needed them since mid august.

Had a lot of pain and discomfort yesterday and last night, which was helped by lots of THC before Katrin’s visit and afterwards too.

Suddenly the temperature got very warm last night, strange for that to happen at night, it was around 20.00 that it became very uncomfortable for me.

Thought that I was having a problem with my catheter, Richie checked and it was working fine, had not slipped out of place or even moved.

Turned out to be then temperature and the fact that I was covered by my duvet, which is quite warm.

What a relief to find it was the outside temperature not my body going mad, great relief, took half a sleeping tablet last night as we were up late watching Match of The Day.

It worked well and I slept after 30 minutes until I woke up coughing early this morning Richie got up and gave me some chamomile throat spray and some THC.

The throat spray took the urge to cough away and the THC helped ease me back to sleep which was good for us all as it was 06.00 when I woke.

It is not such a nice day as yesterday but, it is brighter now so I turned the light out now, and there are rumours of sunshine which is very pleasant.

It Is Only Business.

Berthe Morisot.

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

Today the cloud cover lifted to reveal blue skies and gorgeous sunshine which makes such a difference to the day.

Was told by several people that tomorrow, Saturday will be lovely weather with a temperature of 25 c

Today Richie looked at the weather forecast and it says that from tomorrow there will be four days of rain.

Richie has had to go out and get some shopping as the fruit he had for my fruit shake had become mouldy overnight.

He had made a shake but as soon as I took a sip I tasted that it was not ok, at first Richie did not taste it.

When I took a second sip which again was no good he tasted it again and agrees with me that I was right.

As there was no more fruit Richie has zipped off on his bike to get more fruit and vegetables.

Hope he won’t be to long as I would like to go outside at 15.00 today, really want to get to the market this afternoon.

Especially if instead of a glorious summer day tomorrow it is going to be rain all day, need to enjoy what we have today.

Today I was rung up by Michelle, my mobility aids advisor to make an appointment next week Wednesday.

This is for Michelle to come here with Harm, an engineer from Welzorg, mobility aid supplier, to measure for a wheelchair table.

Am always amazed how many times they have to come by and how many measurements are taken before there is a result.

Trying to stay optimistic and hope that the table saga which has been going on since the end of May will son finally be resolved.

Will be at my best when they are here next week, I always keep in mind Richie’s good advice to at all times remember it is only business.

This does help me to not get too upset and invest my time and energy in such an enterprise which would only succeed in draining me.

These days I would rather put my energies into making my life better rather than worse because I have let their business get to me.

For me it is very personal for them it is their work, hence it is good for me to remember ‘’ It is only business’’.

Happy Days.

It Is A Dragon Naturally Speaking Day.

Maximillien Luce.

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

Woke up bright and early this morning, after a good night's sleep, I heard Richard getting up and decided to carry on snoozing until he woke me up.

After a while I heard the sound of a shower and then my darling Richie came in the room to wake me up smelling gorgeous after his shower.

He got me some THC and told me that he was taking the dogs around the block so that they can visit the dog toilet.

When he came back he got me out of bed and into the bathroom, where he showered me and put clean clothes on me

Very soon I was doing my leg exercises on the Motomed and not too long after at 10.30 I was back in bed.

Nur got a crash course in everything he needed to know to look after me today while Richie is away.

Richie left at 12 lunchtime, checking that everything was okay and I was sitting well in bed, then he left with Spike.

He has been gone now for one hour and a half hour and already it seems like ages, guess it will be by the time Richie gets back at eight o'clock tonight.

It is really strange not having Richie around, of course he goes out but never more than a couple of hours today it will be eight hours without him and Spike.

Weird but so far so good, Nur is doing well, right now he has gone off down the road to get us a couple of Caribbean sandwiches with lots of pepper sauce.

I'm using the voice recognition software today; it is called Dragon Naturally Speaking, and seems to be going well.

Can't seem to work out how to get the software go to the next sentence, as every time I say next sentence it just write it out as text and doesn't go down one row.

Very frustrating but seeing this is the first time I'm using it since I tried it out once or twice when I first bought it, it is not bad at all.

Looking forward to trying out the Dutch and German versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I think this is going to be great fun.

I need to find a way to navigate between applications and hopefully even play FreeCell and Solitaire and read the newspapers.

Sure that I will find out lots more about what this software can do as the more I use it, have to be alert and remember to turn the microphone off when I'm not dictating.

Stopped just now and tried to write an e-mail but Dragon included three or four sentences that I never ever said out aloud.

Then it recorded the conversation between Nur and I, as soon as I realised what was happening the problem was solved by turning the microphone off.

It is a gorgeous warm and sunny day; Nur turned the fan on right next to me and is keeping me well supplied with drinks.

All set to enjoy a pleasant afternoon, even more pleasant when our neighbour Willes arrives at 3 pm.

And life will be even better when Richie walks in with Spike at 8 pm tonight.