"An Attitude of Gratitude"

I'll explain about the picture later........
But first, after the "Cattitude" post last month we now have "An Attitude of Gratitude"
Why? I hear you ask.
Why not? you hear me reply.
Stalemate then.
For the benefit of those among you who don't already know, I went in to hospital last Thursday to have an operation on my damaged shoulder.
For the benefit of those among you who do already know, I still went in to hospital for the operation.
It seems that whether you knew about or not made absolutely no difference to the medical team who sliced me open.
Last January I did what old people do best and fell over, damaging my rotator cuff and causing a huge 4cm tear in the tendons on my right shoulder.
The surgeon who did my assessment warned me that due to the severity of the injury I would have to have a "brastrap" incision rather than keyhole surgery.
So, last Thursday morning at 7-30 my friend Pete threw me out of his car and onto the tender mercies of Kettering General Hospital Treatment Centre staff.
Yes, that's right....7-30AM, an hour I never knew existed, but I do now...Oh yes.
After being warmly welcomed on to Geddington ward I was  led by a nurse to a room containing three beds and two elderly gentlemen. I say elderly but Ken was only 86 and Mick wasn't.
I was the baby of the trio.
I was given two hospital robes one of which went on backwards and the other one frontwards if you see what I mean and a pair of extremely fetching knee length socks designed to help prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis plus a booklet on How to Avoid Deep Vein Thrombosis.
In the operating theatre I can remember asking the anaesthetist how long it would take for the stuff he was injecting me with to Kno................................................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Not long apparently.
It took only two hours for the operation to be completed, which was slightly less time than it took me to get the blooming green DVT socks on.
After being warned about the "brastrap" surgery I had obviously packed my best bra for the trip to hospital so you can imagine my annoyance when I found that I had in fact been Keyholed.
Still, mustn't grumble.
During my stay in hospital I was treated with great kindness and respect. I was fed with delicious food by lovely ladies. I was coffee'd, tea'd, biscuited, watered and cared for wonderfully. My marmalade was spread for me by hand and my rolls were buttered. Truly my cup overflowed.
On the day of my departure I was visited by a physiotherapist who gave me some very gentle exercises to do when I'm able to.
I was also given some dressings for the wounds, a selection of pills to help control the pain and best of all a wonderful piece of bondage equipment which they insisted on calling a sling.
With the Bondage Equipment (sling) and the special DVT stockings I am indeed a sight to behold and photographs are available on request.
Thank you so much Kettering General Hospital.
You made me feel special, because I'm worth it.
But what about the picture at the top of the page?

I'll tell you next time......

God Bless    xxx

Cattitude. (with apologies to Charles Swindall)

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of cattitude on life."


Now, I must admit that in some ways I'm lucky because I don't have any cats. 
However.....
My wife is owned by eight of the delightful creatures and each one of them has his or her own distinct personality
Sadly they have not yet accepted that they do not own me so their catitude to me is exactly what you would expect.
Robbie, who you can see on the left is convinced that he owns me and so he has attached me to him with a strong elastic band which means that where he goes, I go too.
Clarence, the cross eyed one suffers from a deficit of wake which means that he needs twenty two hours of sleep a day and is very reluctant to give up his bed to us when we need to retire for the night. In fact he doesn't give it up, he just moves into the middle so that we can slide in without disturbing him.
Then we have Babe ( sometimes called Tich the Terror). For a long time it was Tich's custom when it was raining to bring us a gift of worms. Some evenings we would find up to half a dozen of them lined up for inspection on the kitchen floor. As fast as we put them back into the garden they would reappear.
But not now.
Tich the Terror has become a FROG magnet.
Now, I've got nothing against frogs you understand but I don't find them that attractive.
That is something that seems to have escaped Tich who insists on bringing her new friends into the house while we are watching "Cats Life" on the television.
Last night she came in with what I thought was either a snake or a VERY LARGE worm in her mouth but I realised too late that she had a frog head first down her throat with its back legs hanging out on either side of her mouth.
After I detached myself from the ceiling I chased after her but I became stuck in the cat flap so I was unable to rescue the poor creature.
Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
In the end it all comes down to CATITUDE.
Still....Mustn't grumble.


God |Bless.

Give me patience

What do I want?
Patience.
When do I want it?
Now.


Now, I do have a lot of patience but that doesn't make me a patient patient.
Please pay attention because I may be asking questions later.
Or not.
By the way, if you've heard this tale of woe stop reading now.
At the end of January I tripped over a kerb stone in the car park of a local supermarket and in trying to break my fall I put my right arm out to brace myself against a bollard.
This caused enormous damage to my ego as I crashed to the ground using my left knee as a cushion between my body and the floor.
The next day I was in A and E getting checked out and I was booked in for an MRI scan. I did not enjoy that experience much but it had to be done and on February 23rd just a month after my fall I spent 25 claustrophobic minutes in a round chamber with Neil Diamond. How they got both of us in there I will never know.
The report from the MRI scan came through a couple of weeks later when my doctor accessed the hospital computer and printed it out.
Here it is, and this is where your patience will be tested:

There is a large rotator cuff tear involving the supra spinatous, subscapularis and superior part of the infra spinatous with almost 4cm tendon retraction and severe supra and infra spinatous muscle atrophy. The biceps tendon is subluxed medially,outside the bicepital groove. There is narrowing of the subacromial space secondary to a large rotator cuff tear with some irregularity over the greater tuberosity.


And so it goes on.
It was decided that the damage would not repair itself and so I was booked in for surgery as a matter of URGENCY.
That was on March 26th. In the intervening months I have risen up to number 39 in the waiting list and have been given the hope that I may have my operation around September (this year)
So now I have a left hand  arm which is getting to be my arm of choice for most tasks and I have a right hand arm which, like rest of me is decorative rather than functional.
Still, mustn't grumble.

God bless   xx

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to London?

Actually it was on Wednesday when we popped up to the teaming metropolis that is our capital city along with a coach load of art lovers from the St. Andrews Church, Kettering art group.

I forgot to take a photograph of the gallery but this phone box is just outside so you can exercise your imagination.

Tate Britain is on the river Thames embankment, quite close to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster.

The exhibition itself was mainly very good with some stunning paintings and a few pleasant surprises.

One of my favourites was by an artist called John Dunstan which he painted around 1660 and it still looks good today. It's title is, A Pollard Oak near West Hampnett Place Chichester. Have a look on Google and see if you can find it.

Most of the exhibition was excellent but they did reserve one room right near the end (before you have to go through the shop to the exit) which contained some really poor stuff. I'm no art expert but at my age I do know an awful lot about rubbish and there was a lot of it in that room. Still, mustn't grumble.

Just along the street from Tate Britain there is a superb pub called The Morpeth where the food, the beer and the service is absolutely first class.

Pop in and mention my name next time you're down there. It won't mean a thing to anyone but who cares?

Tomorrow I'm off to Desborough to photograph a wedding with my friend Mike so maybe I'll tell you about it on my next blog.

Bye for now.

God Bless xx

I just logged in and I noticed a message that said "you are invisible" which is something that I've suspected for a little while now.

I'm not too sure when it happened and I think that I'm not invisible to everyone but I know that when I walk through town, people don't acknowledge me if I stand aside to let them pass or if I hold a door open for them to walk through.

It may be an age thing because I do remember that when I was young, tall, dark and handsome I was clearly visible to lots of people.

And another thing I've noticed is that I'm not on any of my holiday photographs.

Oh, there are lots of pictures of lovely views and lovely wife and lovely friends but what about me?

I can't even rely on the mirror to give me a true reflection of myself because all I can see now is an old man with a wrinkled face and very little hair.

Who is this interloper?

Never mind.

Tomorrow I'm off to London with a coach load of old people to visit an exhibition of water colour paintings at the Tate Britain gallery.

In went there two years ago and left my umbrella behind so perhaps I'll be able to reclaim it tomorrow.

Did you notice the picture at the top of this blog. That's me (on the right) and my mate Harry when we were firemen. Of course it's quite an old photo and it does flatter me a bit I suppose but never mind.

Mustn't grumble

Love to everybody.

So here we are with another brand new day to do with what we will. Of course we used to get them all the time when I was a lad and really we never thought about where they came from. Now, here we are sixty seven years on and still they keep on coming.

How does that work then?

One of the things that we didn't have to concern ourselves with as children were General Elections. I think that I had to wait until I was quite old before I was able to vote. Not like nowadays.

And another thing.

We had proper politicians in those days. Dedicated leaders and men of principal and substance who were respected by the whole country.

Or am I confusing them with doctors?

Never mind.

Since Tuesday of this week we have a new alliance, a co-operative, a coalition to save the economy, the country and the world.

We now have Ant and Dec!!!!

Hey, Hey, Hey.....It's a brand new day

I heard today that our government has come up with a brilliant scheme to deal with all the potholes that motorists are complaining about. This is to replace the "Adopt a Pothole" scheme that was first suggested by the Flying Yoghurt party with a brand new initiative.

What is going to happen is this:

All of the potholes in England are going to be collected together and used as a massive landfill site which eventualy will be used as building land for a new town called Ketterby which will be located in Ketteringshire which itself is just South of Scotland and slightly up from North Londonshire.

Ketterby will be re-marketed as the most Southerly Ski Resort in England in an attempt to woo visitors from all over the continent who will now be able to fly directly in to the new International airport at Sywell.

I don't believe it!

Watch this space.