Heart Attack Time

I've just read a post by Bob (as in Mr Brague who rhymes with plague) upon an incident he had and a reminder that we should all listen to our bodies. 

Assuming you have either already read or now popped over to his post you will see that I commented as follows:

"Unlike you, when I thought I was having a heart attack (same symptoms as yours and age 56) I immediately went to the nearest doctor (I was away from home at a trade fair). He pronounced me A1 after doing all the tests. To be continued..... "   I am continuing.

Later that evening after my friends and I had been for dinner we were walking back to the place we were renting for a few days. It was a very bitter, windy October evening in Aviemore in the coldest part of the Scottish Highlands. I was breathless and when I eventually made it back I asked them to get an ambulance.

It arrived as did the local doctor I'd seen that afternoon. The general assumption was that I'd had a heart attack. I was carted off to Inverness and spent the night having tests and so on. 

In the morning I was declared A1 fit for discharge with them being able to find no indication whatsoever of a heart attack. I was very surprised but happy. However as I had nowhere to go and no clothes and no one to collect me (they were all at the trade fair 30 miles away) I was shoved into a private sideroom until the next day. During that day I wandered up and down the three flights of stairs (with the permission of the doctor!) to the ground floor, had lunch in the café and generally amused myself.

That evening my friends brought in my clothes and agreed to collect me the next morning. Whilst they were there two doctors and three nurses entered and, very accusingly, asked why, at 11pm the previous evening, I had had an ECG. No one had ordered one. 

My response made it clear that it certainly wasn't me who had asked for it and they were the medics. Apparently no ECG had been ordered so far as anyone could find. However, you guessed it, it showed quite the opposite to everything previously done. I was to go back onto the observation ward that very moment and, no, the bed would go with me in it, I was not to move a muscle until the morning.

The next morning a consultant whom I hope I never meet again came in and  told me that I was being flown to Edinburgh for an angiogram and probably angioplasty. (See sub-story below).

Next day I was duly loaded into a helicopter ambulance and flown down to Glasgow. In those days angioplasty was a much bigger job than it is today where they pop a line up your arm and bob's your uncle. So I'm told by people who have had recent stent insertions.

I found myself in a huge theatre with two consultants and heaven knows how many support staff and a television set to my left showing an x-ray view of my heart and its surrounds. This had the advantage that the consultants could see into my body and work out where the stents were going and, for me, it stopped any potential boredom. It was a long afternoon! I won't bore you with the details although some were very amusing and some were a tad unpleasant. I had 5 stents inserted. The 6th just wouldn't play ball. 

The Sub Story

I didn't know anyone in Edinburgh and it's the diagonally opposite side of the country to Lewis. I know lots of people in Glasgow and life would have been so much easier in hospital there. The Consultant was not having any of it and dismissed my request for Glasgow 'if possible pretty please" with an "I send people to Edinburgh!" Behind him the Sister gave me a kindly smile and a wink. I knew I was in good hands.  The next morning she explained that, regretfully, she hadn't been able to find a bed in the Edinburgh Hospital so I was going down to the Glasgow Western Infirmary.  

Absent

This is just a quick post of explanation because some have wondered why I wasn't responding to comments in my last post (which I have now done).

On Saturday evening as I was getting into bed my chest tightened up and I got pains and was having difficulty breathing.  At this point it becomes hard to decide whether one is having a heart attack or that the body has gone into panic mode unnecessarily.

I'm not, by nature, a pannicker so I concluded that the rational explanation was heart related. I had had a heart attack many years ago before Blogland existed (I blogged about it here) and I had an 'incident' some years ago which was pronounced a 'false alarm'.

I decided to call an emergency ambulance. It was then that I discovered that my house phone wasn't working. Heaven knows how long that had been the case because I only keep it for emergencies (ironically). Anyway I had my cellphone (which is, I discovered, registered with the emergency services because I've used it before in an emergency).

The outcome was a couple of nights in the High Dependency Unit of the local hospital. We are so fortunate in having a hospital with brilliant care (and no 10 hour queues in A & E).

I was then discharged fit and well again.

However I have to confess that for a while I was a more than a little apprehensive.

Homesickness

If there is a way of making someone homesick it is sending them lots of food and goodies that are unique to 'home'.  I recall my Uncle who had emigrated to Canada in the '50s saying the same. 

'Home', though, is a very strange concept in my mind. I was born in Liverpool and have a certain nostalgia for that great city which once rivalled New York for the size of its international trade and had docks larger than those of London. However the day I moved away was the last day I felt that it was 'home'. 

I came to Lewis for two years in the '70s and never left. Wherever I am now, Lewis is 'home'. I think that it always will be.

However I'm a Hebridean Kiwi at heart having lived a half-life there for a decade. Every time I flew into Lewis or flew into New Zealand or every time I left either, my heart would give a jump and my eyes would well up with tears of emotion.

So when The Family in New Zealand sent me a goody-box for Christmas I was overwhelmed. I'm still opening packets and eating memories.

Thankful Thursday

Jaz from Treacy Travels has been giving me food for thought for several years now and her post last Thursday Happiness, optimism and the Dalai Lama was no exception.  Jaz asked "Why do some find being happy so hard?" and concluded hard work was a requirement just as it was for a good marriage, a flourishing garden, a good friendship or a  fit healthy body.  She also quoted the Dalai Lama "It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come."

My immediate reaction when I read the post was that I didn't find being happy hard at all.  I'm lucky enough, I thought, to be very happy.  The more I thought about it though, the more I realised that Jaz had a very good point.  It isn't that simple.

Then along came Yvonne's post 'See Me' - the anti-stigma mental health campaign and I started to realise that not only was Jaz so right but that the degree of 'hardness' could be extreme for some people and not just because of their own illness but because of people's attitude towards it.  That was where the Dalai Lama's saying hit home for me .... develop a good attitude and heart and from this, happiness for both yourself and others will come.

So today if you are not happy think about just how much effort it will take to be happy and to make others happy too and then go and make that effort or take a tiny step along the road.

If, however, today you are happy or if you have made someone else happy with your positive attitude towards them join me in being thankful.

Thank You NHS

So far this year has been unlike any I can recall. It's the first year since I started blogging that I've been away from Blogland so frequently.

I lost my younger brother. I still keep wanting to send him wee messages about things and have to remind myself that he's no longer around to answer them. 

This week my son, Gaz, had his fiftieth birthday. What!! 

When one gets to one's eightieth year life should, in theory, be slowing down. In practice it seems to me that it's speeding up instead. The date of my birth seems further and further away on a daily basis.

All of a sudden things that I thought nothing about like climbing up ladders and wandering around roofs checking them have become things to either avoid or think very carefully about because my sense of balance isn't what it was. 

My electric foldable bike has suddenly become too heavy and cumbersome to fold and put in the back of my car. Indeed my balance riding it had become rather problematic too. 

I've suddenly realised that I'm no longer the spring chicken that I once was. 

Don't get me wrong I'm neither complaining nor being maudling. I'm intensely proud of the fact that this body I inhabit and which, but for the then newly formed NHS would never have got past its teens, has served me well and is continuing so to do.

Despite having cancer since my diagnosis and operation in 1997 I am still being treated successfully. Every 4 months now I get my uretic stent renewed. 

I have 5 or 6 stents in my heart since a heart attack in 2000. 

I had a new knee eight years ago and it is so good I usually forget that it's not the original. 

All this makes me realise that despite the underfunding and apparent attempts to privatise it and all the unfortunate hundreds of thousands of people waiting for appointments and treatment there are still millions of us who have benefitted hugely and who are still here to say 'Thank You' to the 1948 Labour Government which had the courage to establish it.

What Happens Afterwards?

I'm referring, of course, to the Referendum as to whether Scotland should become independent.

One of the first things anyone learns who is doing a job which involves advocacy of any sort is that in order to win an argument you must first know and understand the other person's case or point of view.   So when a friend who was round for dinner last night asked me why some Scots would wish to vote 'Yes' I embarked upon an explanation.  I had little difficulty partly because my head has been here long enough to understand and partly because I spent my early years in the North West of England and people there had a similar view of being dominated by the South who, in our minds, regarded anyone north of Watford as a teuchter.

I should say that unless asked a direct question I always try to avoid the subjects of politics and religion when in company: especially the company of people who may hold strong and differing views from my own.

To cut a long story short one of the party took umbrage at the case I made and left in a towering and apparently uncontrollable rage.

Wind back the clock a few months and I joined Collaborative Scotland whose website started with the paragraph:  "Whatever the outcome in September’s referendum about independence, we all need to work hard to ensure that we can live well together after the referendum. That this is so within Scotland seems fairly obvious and, of course, the same can also be said about our relationships with the rest of the UK."  I'm not sure that the organisation has really got very far although I like its objectives.

How I will vote remains my business and, in any case, whilst I started off with my head ruling my heart, on the day my heart may well rule my head or perhaps my head will have seen reason (whatever that might be!).

Whatever the result I fear that the recriminations and effects will be far more bitter and far-reaching than anyone can at this moment imagine.  I hope that I am wrong.  I very much hope that.

Banks and Insurance

I have spent the last few days trying to sort out bank account problems and insurance. I suppose it's my own fault to some extent for having so many bank accounts and actually wanting to be insured and honest about my declarations. One of the few things which sank into what passes for my brain when I read law was that contracts of insurance are contracts uberrimae fedei. In plain English that means that, whether or not you have been asked by an insurance company, you must declare to it everything that could possibly be relevant when you are seeking insurance (or, indeed, if your circumstances change when you have the insurance, you must tell the Company of that change). If you don't, then an Insurer has every right to, and almost certainly will, repudiate liability in the event of a claim.

When I came home in April I tried to log online into my Royal Bank of Scotland account. I have it because despite my heart attack and cancer they had indicated that they were happy to provide me with standard travel insurance ie not for my New Zealand stay but for any other travel, including the USA. I had forgotten my pin and despite phone calls and letters and promises to sort it and telephone me it remained unsorted and I remained unphoned - since the start of June. Yesterday I made it my mission in life to sort the problem and, eventually, after about 90 minutes on the phone and with another letter to go in the post to confirm my details I was assured that the problem had been sorted.

 

In the meantime I looked at the many benefits that one gets with one's RBOS account, including the travel insurance. There was a letter to the effect that whilst they had not sought medical details in the past they were now doing so. I'd already made a voluntary declaration in 2006 and been accepted. I decided I'd better check and update that. What a big mistake.  I cannot believe that the Bank's public relations staff or management can have any idea at all of the unbelieveble boorish rudeness of some of their insurance staff. The long and short of it was that I was told (despite having a letter from the Bank acknowledging it) that I'd never made a declaration and was not eligible for insurance cover for any heart or cancer related situation. 

This contrasted with the wonderful, sympathetic and friendly service from P J Hayman and Travellers Health Check from whom yesterday I again bought my long-stay insurance for New Zealand with no strings attached.  Guess who will be providing me with my standard travel insurance as well in future.

So today the RBOS have lost a customer although, admittedly. not a very profitable one and a very great deal of good will.  And I wasted all that time getting access to my account on line.   And I'll never really know whether it had been sorted.   Ah well.

The Ability to Remember and Memories.

I woke very early this morning. Apart from anything I had cramp.  I got up, walked around and eventually went back to bed. Sleep obviously wasn't an option so I decided to have a thinking session. Thinking has never been one of my strong points. That was my Brother, CJ's, forté. However, I came up with some good ideas relating to a combination of the mundane (practical things like meals for the next few days) to blogging. I lay there writing blogs in what passes for my mind. I decided on a plan for those days this coming week where I had 'free time' (not many!). Then disaster struck. I dozed off for a short while. When I woke I couldn't recall a single idea that I'd had. 

I'm writing this this evening, some hours later.  I'm sure that many of you will have read occasional tales of woe about my lack of a memory. I come from a family with phenomenal memories. 

As an example, in 2001, my father as he lay dying at the age of 94 (when his heart had failed and wouldn't even give him enough oxygen to allow him to raise an arm) was taken into a nursing home. I was at home on Lewis. I got into the car and went for the lunchtime ferry and, with an overnight stop, arrived in Liverpool around lunchtime the next day.

I was saying hello to my father when a lady with a clipboard and briefcase came in. She introduced herself as being from the welfare department. She had come to assess my father for his suitability for a nursing home place (or, presumably, an alternative). I should say that my father had heart failure and couldn't raise his arm or even a hand to his face to give himself a drink.

The welfare officer started asking my father the usual, and to me at that moment silly, questions to asses his mental faculties. At this point, I (who was obviously very tired both physically and emotionally) completely unreasonably berated the social worker for harassing someone in my father's condition. She was rather taken aback but my father saved the day by saying "Oh for heaven's sake stop acting like a couple of children.  I assume you want to know how compos mentis I am. I'm in a nursing facility. We live in a constitutional monarchy."  He then went on to name members of the government and so on until the social worker turned to me and said "Well that's us well and truly put in our place. I don't think I need to bother your father any more. I think we can safely say I have all the information I need to approve the placement".  She thanked my father and said cheerio. 

Dad died a few days later..

Be Still My Beating Heart

A few days ago I was looking at a friend's photographs of his recent holiday in France. I had been there with him last year. We had enjoyed the local culture and played petanque in the village. I remarked to CJ how nostalgic I'd felt and happened to say "Be still my beating heart". What a silly saying. That's just about the last thing I want!

Review, Rethink, and React

I've had a rather unsettled time since my last post.  The world's political situation has been depressing me and my uretic stent has been causing problems which always scares me because of the possibility of sepsis. Over the years I have got to the stage where I can recognise the very early onset of sepsis. However sometime it occurs in the middle of the night and I can wake up in a very confused state. Fortunately the emergency services have so far managed to respond to my confused phone calls and I'm here to tell the tale.

Apart from that I'm okay but enough of health and negativity.

I'm getting to the stage when I find the international political situation beyond coping with. It's obvious that the USA is going to be a loose cannon until Trump relinquishes power which may not be any time soon. It seems entirely possible that he may alter the constitution to declare himself president for life.

I spent my professional career in local government and can say without fear of rational contradiction that the great majority of people working in local government had the best interests of the communities they served at heart. I'm talking about professionals. Politicians were a different kettle of fish. Some - probably the majority - did have the best interest of their constituents at heart. Some, on the other hand, were in politics for what they could get out of it. In the UK when I was working, local government politicians were UNPAID and just received expenses. Now they are professional politicians.

I am, by nature, a very positive person. So THIS WILL BE MY LAST NEGATIVE POST.

I've never been a daily poster like YP and many others of you but my absence from Blogland has been unsettling for me because it's been such a part of my life for so many years.

I'm very fortunate that in my 81st year I'm as busy as I ever was and sometimes busier. Despite so many of my pals having left this mortal coil others have filled the gaps. 

So I'm counting my blessings and hopefully I'll return forthwith to being an active member of the blogging community to which I have belonged for so many years. 

A Heavy Heart

Yesterday I did something I thought I would never have to do and I did it with a very heavy heart:  I removed a comment from this blog. 

Of course we all remove spam and such like but on this occasion the post contained the apparent views of one of our community: a friend in Blogland.

The person concerned is well known to many of us for his unusual approach to lots of subjects and is generally very entertaining and, yes, often controversial.  Whilst having a deep intake of breath when I first read the comment I decided that free speech overruled my desire to delete it immediately.   I prevaricated.  Then a very close friend who to whom fairness is absolute and injustice anathema pointed out that it crossed the boundaries by any standards.  So I removed it.

I can't express how sad I feel.

Will it matter a couple go days from now?  Of course not.  But at this moment it weighs heavily upon me.

To Youth in the Bird World

Many of you will know at least the start of Shelley's To a Skylark and Keats' Ode to a Nightingale the commencements of which are, respectively,

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,

and

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Keats is a poet whose work I generally enjoy greatly and that particular poem is one I used to know almost by heart.

Anyway today I was searching my Penguin Book of Bird Poetry for a suitable poem based upon young birds as an introduction to the photos I wanted to show you.  I could find none.  In fact I spent a good hour half watching the superb Djokovich v Del Potro Semi-Final and half reading bird poetry.  At this point I can see Adrian thinking up a suitably acerbic comment with which to adorn this post.

In fact although there are at least some poems on most common birds, on the whole bird poetry seems to be dominated by just a few birds: doves, larks, nightingales, robins and thrushes.  Somehow the fulmar and the wheatear seem to have been given a complete miss.

Young fulmars on the cliffs at West Wemyss

Parents doing the 'food run' for a young greenfinch.

I was asked if the birds ever used the nesting box on the garage wall.  I replied in the negative.
However a few days later all the young sparrows decided to use it as a resting place.

This young robin actually landed at my feet at the Maybury Garden Centre.
Even its parents seemed unconcerned by its association with me.

"Do you like this pose?"

This young wheatear has been flitting around the garden for a week or so gradually metamorphosing from a fledgling to a young adult

Okay a fairly fluffy young adult

Where is Home?

Home is such an emotive word. It can conjure up so many ideas and so many emotions and, of course, it tends to vary with cultures and individuals. 

This morning I woke early and read a blog post by Katie Macleod.  Katie, who hails from Lewis and whose parents live in this township of Eagleton, is the journalist, traveller and expat Scot (living in the USA) behind the blog Stories My Suitcase Could Tell.

The post I read this morning was entitled What Happens When an Expat Goes Home and it was followed by another post with a short travel video biopic of her home: The Hebrides.

I've written about home before and I recalled ending a post in 2013 with the words "My birthplace was entirely beyond my control.  Where I choose to call my home isn't.  Whatever my nationality may be on my passport I am a Hebridean Kiwi in my heart."

To me Home is Lewis. It is where my heart returns from wherever I happen to have been. It is where, when the plane touches down, I know I belong. It's where, when the ferry arrives I drive onto the soil that will claim me when I'm gone. There is no logical rhyme or reason to that because, although I've lived here the majority of my life,  I was born and brought up elsewhere. But I have no family, friends or any emotional bond to the place of my birth. I have all of those things here on Lewis.

However, having spent, nearly 10 years living 6 months in New Zealand and 6 months at home here on Lewis the subject of my emotional home is one that has often been in my thoughts. Oddly when I left Napier for my first journey home after living there for 6 months I was very emotional just as I was when the plane landed on Lewis where I felt that I was Home and that was it. As the years went on the emotions for both places got stronger when I arrived and left each one. However because I always expected to return the emotions stabilised. I was always going to see the other again.

Until, that is, I had an enforced longer period back home on Lewis over the last two years. I’ve just returned from 6 weeks instead of 6 months in New Zealand. Whilst I was there it was as if I’d never been away. I felt that I could happily live there. But when I left I just got on the plane and left. It was hard leaving friends and The Family but all of a sudden it was somewhere I had visited and not my second home.

The plane set down on Lewis and it was as if I’d never been away. That’s how I think it will always be from now on. Time will tell.

What does home mean to you? 

Thankful Thursday

This morning I set about the task of filling my pill boxes which enable me to make sure that I take the appropriate medication that the medical profession deems appropriate to keep me on this mortal coil.  It's one of those irritating tasks but one that for a short while once every four weeks saves me time each day.  However it's rather like dishwashers: they save an enormous amount of time late at night after a dinner party but the task of emptying them has suddenly become a chore.  Whilst I was filling my pill boxes I was thinking about my Thankful Thursday post.  I had intended to do a post during the week but didn't make the time and by this morning I couldn't recall what it was.  Silly me.  Then it suddenly occurred to me how grateful I am for the medicine that has ensured that I have been able to live a trouble-free life since my heart attack 11 years ago.  This medicine is provided by a national health service free of charge.

So today I am thankful for the good health that I enjoy as a result of the doctors who have attended me, the drugs which have been developed which give me that good health and the system that provides them (at no direct cost!).

And PS I'm also thankful for the 'medicine' in the bottle at the back of the picture.  The docs say that in moderation red wine is beneficial to the heart.  Amen to that.

A Sad Dilemma

I sometimes have difficulty with the real world.  Feral cats are a real nuisance in Australia and New Zealand and, I'm told, in rural France as well.  I have the realism to know that they have to be destroyed and, living in rural areas as I do I realise that a farmer and a shotgun are the most efficient method both from the point of view of the cat and the farmer.  Risking a scratch from a feral cat can mean risking a necrotising sore (as an acquaintance who nearly lost an arm knows).  So feeding feral cats is definitely not an option.

Friends in France were therefore rather discomfited to find a litter of kittens with their mother in one of the outbuildings adjacent to their house.  It was thought that there were four kittens.  Earlier this week the mother appeared to have disappeared with all but two of the kittens who appeared to be very frail.  Given her attitude (defensively aggressive when approached) the assumption had been made that when she had moved the stronger kittens to somewhere she considered safe and left the others to die.   However yesterday morning I thought the remaining kittens looked better and when I saw the mother  leaving the outbuilding and hunting a little later I realised that she must have been feeding them.

This morning all became clear when we saw the mother and six kittens on next door's farm.  I photographed them but didn't want to get too close and upset her.  Unfortunately I didn't realise that the automatic focusing had focused on foliage in front of her.

The point of the photos is, of course, that they present a picture that appeals to the heart which can lead to the head being overruled.  What is even more strange and heart-rending is what happened at lunchtime.  The mother conquored her fear or antipathy towards us and made her way towards the table where we were lunching in the open.  She was thin and obviously struggling to feed her litter.  She was begging for food.  Food she was never going to get.  I left the table and she walked at my heels to the edge of the property hoping or anticipating that I was going to feed her.  I have rarely felt so torn for an animal.  She is a feral cat who was prepared to do almost anything to ensure her kittens survived.

I had a beautiful meal tonight - fillet steak in a cream and Almagnac sauce with all the trimmings.

Somehow I don't feel quite so good about today.

A Friend

I have been away from the Island since last weekend.

Yesterday I lost a friend:  a friend with a capital F.

We had been friends for over four decades.

We had also been colleagues. John had professional and personal integrity of the highest order. He was a man with a disorganised desk and an organised mind.

He had a sense of humour which was sometimes a little macabre, sometimes a little offbeat, sometimes downright obscure but always cleverly thought out and considered. He was also a master of anagrams (Western Isles = Wetness riles).

John was a man with considerable generosity of spirit.

John was a family man: his family were everything to him and his life revolved around his family. John and his wife formed a partnership without which John would not have been complete.

John has now escaped the cruel cancer that consumed him.

My heart goes out to those he has left behind.

I may not be visiting Blogland much for a little while.

Celebrating Life

It started with my Maternal Grandmother in 1971 at the age of 93. She died. She sat down, her heart stopped and she died. Rather like Francis Garrood's Ernest, nobody had expected it, least of all my Grandmother. 

Some years before she died she had had influenza. That was in the days when the doctor would come to the house in the middle of the night and pronounce that the climax would be in a few hours and the patient would either die or, if she got through that, the would be fine. Nana had got through it so was invincible. After that she gave instructions that no black was to be worn at her funeral.

In the nearly half a century I've lived on Lewis I have been to a great many funerals. A funeral is a very important occasion and in the earlier days a thousand people could turn up. I still wear a dark suit, black tie and, in winter, the Crombie I bought in George Henry Lee (John Lewis in Liverpool) I bought around 60 years ago. 

At my Grandmother's funeral I wore a tie of red and black tiny diamonds the overall effect of which was a muted red. At the gathering afterwards I was very publicly berated by a relative. Mores hadn't moved forward.

When our son, Andy, died in 2006, he made all the arrangements for his farewell: it was to be a celebration of his life and there was to be no mourning and nothing black. There was a Humanist celebrant: Andy was atheist. The service opened with a song by The Smashing Pumpkins. Apart from that I can recall absolutely nothing whatsoever of the day: not even where we went afterwards. Mind you it was all in London where Andy lived. 

At the beginning of this week an acquaintance of 40 or so years died. The Celebration of Life Service was held in the Salvation Army Hall. Those attending were asked to wear bright colours. Everyone made some effort - even those who probably had nothing even semi-bright in their wardrobe. I wore my bright red waistcoat, a colourful tie and no black whatsoever. She had a wonderful send-off with lots of happy moments recounted. The irony of it was that probably more people were crying than I've ever seen at any Lewis funeral before.

When I go, and like everyone else I surely shall, please make sure you are wearing a bright colour to remember me. If you're wearing black and talking of the things that await me, I shall come back and haunt you.

A Walk In The Woods

Well it's a start. Since my hospitalisation last September I've been unable for much of the time to go for 'proper' walks i.e. ones that get the muscles going and the heart pumping.  I've not even been to the gym very much. Since my visit to Ayr Hospital last week things have improved immeasurably and today I decided that I would don my trusty walking shoes and go for a short but purposeful walk in the Stornoway Castle Grounds. 

It was just  a mile and a half with a few short gradients to tackle. Along the shore road the wind was very strong and that always makes catching one's breath difficult. In the woods, however, it was very pleasant indeed.

Since the 1987 hurricane which brought down a great many of the very elderly trees the woods have undergone a huge transformation with hundreds of trees felled and hundreds planted. The main difference for those of us acquainted with the woods for over 4 decades is the removal of almost all the rhododendrons which had grown wild and covered every available free bit of ground. This has allowed much more light into the woods allowing new trees to flourish.

Wild daffodils on the shore roadside

Great paths for prams

Now that's the sort of helpful notice I like

Cuddy Point and Stornoway Harbour

There's still a few wildish bits

Clive John Edwards

It is with great sadness that I am telling you that Blogland has lost one of its earliest members who was known to some of my longer-term readers of this blog.

CJ, otherwise known as Scriptor Senex, my younger brother died peacefully in hospital last night having had a massive stroke earlier in the week.

CJ started started blogging over 20 years ago on a subject dear to his heart: insects and wildlife mainly in his garden.  The original blog, which unfortunately I have been unable to locate, was on Angelfire. 

Then on the 15 August 2007 he changed to Blogger and started the blog Rambles from my Chair. He also had various other blogs over the years.

More recently a message on his blog made it clear that he was using Instagram and Facebook a lot more  and sometimes they were replacing posts on the blog. In reality his poor health meant that in recent years he spent most of his time reading. He was one of the most voracious readers I've known. He had the advantage of being able to concentrate absolutely and speed read but also remember what he had read.

I owe my blogging career to CJ who introduced me to Blogger in its infancy in 2007.

Eighty

Today is my 80th Birthday.

It's a Marmite Day. That is to say one either loves it or hates it.

A friend recently reached that age and refused to acknowledge it.

I want everyone to know and I shall be celebrating. Nothing extravagant: just coffee with friends in the morning at The Woodlands. In the evening Gaz and Carol are taking me and my sister-in-law (who is staying with me at the moment) out for dinner.

The reason I am celebrating is not just for myself but in thanks to our wonderful NHS without which I would not have lived much past my 16th birthday. At that age I had a disease that still kills people today. However by a stroke of good fortune I was referred to a specialist who (and there were long waiting lists for some operations even then) removed much of one of my diseased lungs.

Since then I've lived with cancer since my prostatectomy in 1997 because some cancer cells had already escaped elsewhere my body. However every time so far that the cancer has started to show signs of asserting itself the medics have found a way to stop it. The last, and currenet, treatment started about 7 or 8 years ago with a drugs trial which proved very successful for me.

I had a heart attack in 2000 and had 6 stents inserted.

I could go on but I think that's quite enough evidence to justify my grateful thanks for the wonderful people who work in our National Health Service.

Thank you one and all.