Hello peeps. Things are getting progressively less sore, but each day I end in complete wipe out, usually having overdone one thing or another... today I got dressed in outdoor clothes and went out to several places with my chauffeur... (Daile) who stalwartly refused to let me drive.
Actually, although we've not been officially told, the opinion on when I can drive again varies from 'not before the catheter comes out' to 'four weeks after the op', the latter being the government PDF about prostectomies. I'll be driving after 3 unless I end up on a different trajectory to the one I’m on now, as I’ve told the people at work that I’ll be back on the 6th. I FEEL like I can drive now.
Today we went out to get some timber so that I can make a few things that I’ve been conceiving of during the next couple of weeks. The problem is moving the material around as I’m not supposed to move more than 10lbs at a time... over and above my own considerable bulk. The pains I’m having lately are actually more to do with the other bits of me rather than the cut about bits of me... like spasming shoulder muscles and wind! The catheter is supposed to be coming out on Monday, but before it does, they want to do some tests that involve dyes and x rays to see if there are any leaks! At close of business today they still hadn't booked that... so I’m going in first up on Monday to see what eventuates. I really don't want to have to wait another day to have the thing out.. it hurts unless you lay still.
I have been struggling this week with a painting of Liam Neeson from a captured frame from Schindlers List. I've spent an inordinate amount of hours on it, and it still looks like someone else. It's a good job i've painted other stuff before this, or I’d be giving up painting as something I can't do! I may even give up on it for the time being... much against my own principles with this kind of thing.
A major event that happened this week in the UK was that Josh handed in his dissertation and that effectively means that he's finished at university, as although he's still got other things to do there, none of them count towards his mark. Needless to say the university is finding that attendance to the remaining stuff is very low. From Josh's perspective it's all over. From mine, it signifies even more than any event in his life up to now, that I can chalk up 'one down, three to go' on the back of the workshop door next to the height chart that we occasionally use to see how the little ones are growing.
At the other end of the spectrum Phoebe is performing her first violin concert next Thursday, and unusually for me, I'm going to be able to go to it... which is nice. It'll be all the same stuff that Matilda performed a couple of years ago when she first started. It's a pretty good school for the music and Tilda has been making some solid steps to proficiency lately after not really having been 'enthusiastic' for it. Something seems to have clicked. Phoebe seems to have more of a diligent approach and I suspect may have a disposition for it. Of the two little-uns, she's the more 'arty' and if our scanner hadn't carked it recently I’d post up some really amazing stuff that she's been doing. That said, she's no slouch on the academic stuff either!
Tilda is obsessive about reading stuff, to the extent that she will walk past me in the bed here, on her way to our en-suite, one hand holding a book in front of her face, the other trying to undo her trousers... and come out after the event doing the trousers up but still reading. She's got a rep at school for being an avid reader too, preferring to read than run around screaming. Interestingly however, nobody touches her in terms of bullying, as she's also known to be able to handle herself. The teachers love the fact that she's bringing a level of 'cool' to the business of reading...in debunking the swotty label that other readers have to wear traditionally.
She's been getting into Greek mythology lately as a result of her best mate Aiden and the latest craze books called 'Percy Jackson the lightening thief'... of which there are many. She's had to order a replacement set for Aiden as she's trashed his by getting her breakfast and other grott on them. If you ask her to name the gods that were Greek or Roman currently she'll rattle them off in between burps. I wish it had all come so easily to me.
On the subject of following a different path to the rest of your contemporaries, Molly was telling me that since she was with us in Oz, she's become a bit of a 'Billy no mates' back in blighty, preferring to stay in and paint or read than go out and get pissed like all her old mates, many of whom are at university or art college in fairness, but many of them are still around and beginning their careers by developing a social need to consume alcohol. I think Daile must have worn off on her and I”m delighted to hear it. It seems that this whole alcohol = 'a good time' thing that our societies support is such a sure fire way to social distress later. Much of the work that Daile does with kids at the 'Kids Helpline' is related to this problem and there's a great deal of evidence that developing a need to drink in order to feel OK about yourself is a pretty crap state of affairs to propagate. The 'Billy no mates' thing is a side effect of thinking and acting in ways that are different to everyone else, but when you're reasonably self confident and consider yourself to be worth something, it doesn't really matter too much. Who needs mates that fall apart all the time anyway? There's so much more important stuff to do! (That probably sounds harsh and arrogant, but it's not meant to... I just reckon that you only have time for a certain number of things in your life and it may as well be things that are supporting you and making you happier rather than the opposite, NOT that I advocate not having friends just because they may fall over from time to time)
Oh dear, I’ve rambled on a bit... I'll let you go. :-)
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