It’s still snowing!! 08/02/2018

Hello everyone

It’s still snowing, in fact it hasn’t really stopped since last Sunday night.  When I wrote last I said how we were expecting Benoit to clear the drive in good time for us to get out to go to hospital on Tuesday – well guess what?  That’s right – he didn’t show!  The drive was under a good 4″ of snow so it took a while but Karen got the truck out and we left in plenty of time.  A light dusting of snow wasn’t going to defeat her, oh no.  The local roads were tricky but drivable and the main road had been cleared so we were actually early.  I had more trouble getting to the van than Karen did getting us to hospital – I couldn’t see the edge of the path and ended up in the grass.  It took some pushing and shoving to get me out – Karen’s getting arms like Arnie these days!

Our appointment was at 09:00 and the Doc was true to time.  I was soon hooked up to the ECG machine and watching the display on the screen.  Now this is where I have to offer some kind of apology to the NHS – guess what the PC that the ECG system was working off was running?  Windows XP Pro!  Doh!!  That was the only non-Mac machine I’ve seen in a French hospital to date, but it wasn’t networked so it was safe enough from bad guys I suppose.  After running the ECG tests he did an ultra sound scan of my heart, which was fascinating.  We didn’t see any babies but we did see where my heart attack happened, where the electrodes for the pacemaker were and saw all the chambers of my heart pumping away.  My heart rate came in at 78 bpm and my blood pressure was 120 / 80 – so basically I’ve now got the heart of an athlete – albeit an old one LOL.  The pacemaker battery has got 9 years left in it and the Doc told me my heart will outlast it, so no worries on that score then.  He gave me the all-clear and this morning the admissions desk at Clermont-Ferrand confirmed that I’m all booked in – so roll on Sunday 18th February and my op on Monday 19th February.  Don’t worry though – I’ll have the tinternet while I’m in there so I’ll be able to bore you rigid with tales of French hospital food – although I’ll be typing with one hand so capitals and punctuation might suffer as accessing the shift key might prove difficult.

I was lay in bed last night, unable to sleep after waking up from a dream and it occurred to me that in all my dreams – and I remember a lot of them these days because my sleep is disturbed maybe twice a night to minister catheters – in all my dreams I am walking, running, whatever it is but as if I am still able-bodied.  It’s like my sub-conscious still hasn’t accepted that I’m now handicapped.  I actually find this quite disturbing as it’s as if the deep recesses of my mind, for some reason, want to punish me for what I’ve done to myself.  Why else would if want to remind me of what I was, what I could do and what I still want to be able to do?  I’m tempted to research this, but then again I’m not sure what I will find under the stones I’ll be turning over so maybe not.  I’ll ponder this dilemma for a while and see.

The upside of disturbed dreams is that some of them are quite revealing.  Some of you won’t know this but I took up playing guitar some years ago, starting having lessons when I moved down to Walthamstow to be with Karen.  It’s something I should have done a long time ago, given my love for all sorts of music, but as a result I’ve met and played with some really talented musicians from the music school I went to.  Karen and I had the pleasure of Andy Button and 2 of his muso mates playing at our wedding and they were brilliant.  Andy is a stalwart of the Walthamstow Jazz scene, itself a vibrant part of the Arts in East London and he’s well worth a listen to.  He liked my Sheraton so much he went and got himself one.  Some of you might have heard of Ghostpoet – electro hip-hop is not my favourite kind of music, but the lead guitarist in his band – James Dee  – also tried showing me how to play for a while.  James is a talented lad who before Ghostpoet played bass with Jamie N Commons band but I can’t find out who he’s playing with now.

I’ve wandered off piste a little here. so back on track now to say music is a real source of comfort for me.  Playing is difficult as I have trouble balancing in my chair and holding a guitar.  My Sheraton is too large to hold so Karen bought me a  Fender Telecaster as we thought the smaller body size would make things easier for me.  It does but it’s still a struggle with balance which, hopefully, the operation will further improve.  For the guitar players amongst you the Tele is a hollow bodied, set neck ‘Jim Adkins JA-90’ signature model and it’s a beauty!  Getting up in the morning takes some time.  The nurse arrives at anytime between 10:00 and 10:30, sees to my needs and departs.  That means I don’t get to start washing and dressing until maybe as late as 11:00 and down for 12:00 latest – but as soon as the nurse has gone I get some music on.  Usually it’s YouTube on auto-play and this morning it was the great Mr Paul Weller who kept me entertained.  Tomorrow – who knows – but if any of you have recommendations please feel free to send them across, I’ll listen to anything – at least once!

Again I digress, so back to those dreams.  One I have been having repeatedly is where I get to play with Daryl Hall on ‘Live from Daryl’s House’.  LFDH is a superb internet show where the man himself invites artists into, at first his actual house but more recently to the stage at his restaurant in New York State.  Over the years he has had some great acts on and the quality of musicianship is always phenomenal – if you like music you really should try LFDH – either follow the link or look for it on YouTube.  The web-site is good but for some reason they haven’t cached all the shows so most of them aren’t available.  A couple to look out for are the shows with Todd Rundgren, Smokey Robinson, Butch Walker and Jason Mraz – some of my personal favourites – follow the links and enjoy.  So there I was, playing with Daryl and his band, not a bum note was strummed and somehow I’d turned into a class singer – how cool is that?  If you look hard enough you might find me hiding in the background here somewhere.  No?  Well I did only say ‘might’ LOL.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Hall and Oates live, going back to the late 70’s at the Apollo in Manchester and ending at their last show at the Apollo in Hammersmith in 2014. We also saw Hall and Oates as solo acts in London, I think, in 2013 so needless to say they have always been musically quite special to me.  I remember one show in Manchester in about 1980 – I’d taken my youngest sister Kathy with me and as we came out of the Apsley Cottage we saw them being shepherded to the stage door by the Apollo security team, who were led by a friend of mine from BT – Cliff Jones by name.  He saw me and shouted us over to join them all back-stage.  Result one might have thought?  I know I did but my kid sister was a little overawed at the prospect and so we watched from our seats!  In the words of Daryl himself – ‘so close, yet so far away’.

In the wee small hours of the mornings – or should that be the big wee hours? – I also often find myself making lines up in my head.  Karen was, is, and at heart always will be an English and Languages teacher and her absolute love of words and the usage of language means that poetry plays a very real part in her life.  As a consequence the house is full of poetry books and her passion has rubbed off a little.  I’ve always been an avid reader but poetry was never really my thing, although my favourite singer/songwriters are the more wordy of the breed, those singing poetry really, people such as Jackson Browne for instance.  Try this as an example of his supreme talent – ‘Late for the Sky’.  Having said that, for some reason I never got into Bob Dylan, probably the ‘wordyist’ of lyricists, because I could never understand what he was singing – maybe that’s something else I should revisit now I’ve got the time. Another favourite is Richard Hawley – ex of Pulp and a Rockabilly guitarist at heart – which given the roots of George Harrison’s early inspiration as a guitarist and my absolute love of The Beatles probably draws a huge circle closed.

So now I find myself writing poetry in my head.  It’s all a bit dark, self absorbed and miserable really but then I suppose that’s to be expected given the circumstances.  Fortunately for you lot none of it has been written down so I can spare you the torment of my torments!  You don’t know how lucky you are!!  I will though start to write these thoughts down, not necessarily to post them here but, like this blog, to empty my head of the things that trouble me.

That’s pretty much that for now I’m afraid folks – or are you relieved to hear?

Take care and speak soon

Jem