The Day of the Triffids

I recently spent a great afternoon at Mal's house watching the whole of the 1980's BBC adaptation of John Wyndham's 'The Day of the Triffids'. Despite my youth (!) I remember watching this with my mother (I think she quite liked John Duttine!) and bering terrified. Shortly after I read the novel, which my father had an old Penguin edition of. I've bought a new copy in recent years as his fell apart from subsequent rereadings! I love this story. The TV show really captured the sense of isolation and menace. I particularly liked how no one seems to think that the triffids constitute a threat to the survivors until it's too late....

However, something about walking, talking, killing plants hits me on a 'primal fear' level - yes, I find them really scary; hiding behind the sofa as well as a cushion scary. After watching it I had to walk home through some overgrown grassland.... I walked considerably faster than usual! Mal, bless him, keeps phoning me and making that triffid noise down the phone....at least I think it's Mal....

Father's Day

As you may know, last Sunday was Father's Day. In recent years this has been a quietly sad day for me as I tend to think about my father who passed away far too early. Having Ellie and becoming a father myself somehow intensified this sadness; I think because my father didn't get to meet Ellie.

However, this year Ellie was completely aware that there is a special day for daddies. For some reason this excited her tremendously and her excitement was incredibly infectious! Mummy helped her make a beautiful card and she was part of an ever-widening conspiracy to give me a boardgame as a gift. For the days leading up to the special day she could barely contain her excitement. She revealed to me that I was getting a game called "number five". (It turned out it was copy 5 of 300 of the game Jack has just published, It's Alive!)

Ellie was really excited about bringing me breakfast in bed... and she insisted on helping me eat it! She gave me hugs and kisses frequently throughout the day unprompted! All in all we had a lovely, relaxed, loving day.

I toasteds my father quietly and privately and I still lament his much too early deaparture. But this year it was a day of gladness, not sadness; a day for me and my daughter, who my father would have adored.

T- shirts

My favourite slogans on T-shirts seen recently are-

"I'm blogging this!"

"I'm only wearing black until they invent something darker!"

"Wood for sheep?" (not as strange as it sounds if you are familiar with the boardgame Settlers of Catan!)

unbloggy

Hello everyone!
I'm sorry but I've had a bit of a break from blogging. I can't explain why really - I just haven't fancied sitting down at the keyboard for the last two months. However, that has now changed.

My "illness" continues to be a minor inconvenience (well, major if you factor in not driving or earning money!). On a day to day level I am completely used to it now. The absences rarely annoy (only when I'm showering, shaving or doing anything with boiling water are they problematic, oh or walking!). The memory loss is hard to quantify but if I remember more than 50% of the previous day then I'm doing well. The big frustration here is that rather than 'losing' huge swathes of time I seem to forget little bits here and there. This makes following TV shows, novels, knitting patterns etc rather interesting. (Reading a novel recently I couldn't understand why the main character didn't appear for a hundred pages.... I backtracked and discovered he had died in the twenty pages I read the previous day!). The cognitive changes I still find hardest to deal with, mainly because most of the time they are hard to spot. Retaining and managing new information is still an uphill struggle. Thinking through problems and processes is still harder than it once was - although I can follow recipes again relatively easily.

Lisa is still being really supportive (as is Ellie!). I'm sure she must feel frustrated some of the time but she doesn't show it. We've imlemented all the coping mechanisms that we seem to need and we are merrily getting on with life!