Compliments of The Season…

Yesterday, I completed my eightieth Christmas Day.  Hooray!  Years earlier, I never thought it was on the cards for me to make it to my eightieth birthday, never mind my eightieth Christmas, but – there you are – “we made it”, as I appear to be getting quite fond of quoting, lately…

Mind you, I did manage to pick up a virus, which, apparently, superimposed itself on top of my chronic chest problem and – guess what? – it put me back into hospital for a week.  Luckily, I managed to escape to enjoy Christmas at home and, thanks to the care meted out to me by those lovely, attentive nurses at Selly Oak Hospital, I was able to resume my necessarily lazy existence parked on the settee watching the Christmas programmes on the goggle-box.

Nevertheless, this time, the length of time I spent in a hospital bed wasn’t enough to sabotage the physical efforts I have been making to restore my strength and energy, so  found myself  in reasonably good muscular condition to even start helping Joan to, at least, carry empty Christmas crockery back into the kitchen.  You never know,  I might even get around to doing a little washing up for her in the near future…!

Certainly, my efforts at mild physical exercise seem to be paying a few dividends, at last – even if these ancient sinews are now starting to creak and crackle.

Saw a marvellous Christmas sight yesterday.  It seems there must have been  some kind of gathering of baloonists somewhere because several of these airborne, gas-filled (is it gas?) crept their slowly graceful way across the estate advertising the fact that at least one of them was a “European Champion” of some kind or another. 

 There were four of them, all heading North-West across the Midlands – to what destination, I have no idea, and there was no mention of the baloonist venture on the television news.  All I know is that the baloons were so close to us that we could hear the roaring of the flames as the baloonists fired up to gain greater height.

I was a little disappointed that neither of the four baloons we observed were sporting outstandingly bright, stripey colours that I have seen at gatherings of baloonists on the television – just dull and greyish tones that, as a matter of fact, soon vanished into a large dark cloud before they re-appeared and finally disappeared into the distance…

Anyway, may I wish all at WordPress and all WordPress bloggers and all on the planet The Compliments of the Season and a Happy and Peaceful and Prosperous New Year.

And may the world’s politicians all be inundated – overnight – with the Wisdom of Solomon to finally get us all out of the mess that, so far, they have managed to get us all into…

Well, We Made It…!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I have managed to reach the ripe old age of Eighty, and I often wondered whether I would make it.  Although, it does seem that old people are tending to live a lot longer these days – which is precisely why the Government is busy altering – for instance – the State Pension rules to up the retirement age for women to 65 instead of the 60 it has been for donkey’s ears…

And there is now a new employment ruling that prevents employers from unloading  people from the payroll at retirement age.  Now, an employee will be able to stay at work as long as he or she feel they are capable – which, of course, rules out the need for a Government to pay out a State Pension to the person who has elected to stay on at work…

So, as I say, I made it – in spite of the little physical anomaly that forces me to exist tethered to an oxygen machine for twenty-four hours a day, with the constant effort to try and regain a few of the physical attributes I used to enjoy.

There was no celebration.  I had cards from my wife, and an old friend who has never forgotten our birthdays.  I had, too, a highly graphic email from my son in Germany who hopes I am carrying on with the limited amount of physical exercise I carry out every morning in the bathroom – plus the various mental projects I am working on with the aid of the computer…

One such project is the compilation of a book I never intended to write.  Well, it wasn’t in my mind at the time, anyway.  But when my son saw the enormous number of notes I had made when we toured the Middle West of the States some years ago, he suggested I turned them into a book.

So I did…

Trouble is: the intention wasn’t there, initially, and I could have done with taking many more pictures of our trip.  So, I have decided I have to return to an old talent that I discarded years ago and learn, once more, how to sketch my memories in order to illustrate some of the text of my writings. 

Well, the sketches would be better than nothing and would add a little more graphic interest to the pages, wouldn’t it?

So there’s another learning activity this eighty year old has to become immersed in…

Meanwhile, the twenty-five chapters of my book are contained within this blog , if anyone’s interested.  It’s not intended for publication.  I only wrote it ftor my son, anyway.  When I am satisfied, I may decide to get a printer and publisher to knock off  half-a-dozen hard-bound for me, to give to friends and family.  But that’s about it. 

 I have no pretensions to becoming an eminent author, but if anyone’s interested in my stuff, help yourself…

Back In Again…

I’ve just spent another week in hospital after catching “an infection” on top of the chronic problem I already have…

It wasn’t too bad – just plenty of rest and an intake of antibiotics every day; those and a three-times-daily breathing-in of nebulizer spray soon put me back on my feet and I was glad to get home again…

Trouble is: each time I think I am somewhere on the way to starting to get the spark back into my limbs, I seem to end up in hospital for more enforced bed rest, which siphons off my strength and energy again…!

Well, it doesn’t make much difference at the moment.  The arctic weather has come back and there is no way I am going outdoors to investigate what has to be done in and around the gardens…