Month: March 2018

I don’t actually do very much today – I’m feeling lazy!  I spend the morning replying to some messages and posting links to my weekly vlog on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and then my wife and I drive to North Walsham to buy some more groceries for dinner tomorrow (my wife’s two sons, their partners, our grandchildren plus my wife’s ex-husband and his girlfriend  are coming to dinner tomorrow evening – it’s going to be very crowded round at our house!).

I vacuum downstairs and then split a few logs (when the rain almost stops for a few minutes), fill the log basket and light the fire while my wife is busy in the kitchen making desserts for tomorrow.

I should have completed work on my weekly vlog yesterday, but didn’t…

 Today is spent editing – it’s much more complicated than my usual vlogs which are normally very straightforward, and it takes me almost the whole day to finish.

My wife leaves me to it and disappears off to Hevingham to do a little babysitting for our youngest granddaughter, then to Lidl in North Walsham to buy some ingredients for a sticky toffee pudding that she wants to make, and finally to the allotment to do some more digging.  By the time she turns home (muddy and wet, because it has started raining again) I’m uploading my video to my YouTube channel.

I publish my vlog, light the fire, take some cannabis (to calm my tremor and ease my muscular pain) and we settle down in front of the telly for the evening.

It’s Easter weekend starting tomorrow, so I am doing my weekly vlog today because my wife will be at home tomorrow.   I have decided to vlog about three Parkinson’s Regeneration Training workshop that I attended on Monday, so I start by downloading all of the video that I shot that day onto my MacBook.  There’s quite a lot of it, and it takes almost an hour and a half to copy it over from my video camera.  Much of the afternoon is taken up with reviewing the video to see which bits are worth using, and then writing a script around them.  I change my device settings to group “A” (for a clearer voice) and film myself (with many re-takes – I’m not sure if my voice is getting worse, or if I’m becoming more fussy!).   By the time my wife gets home from work I have only just started editing, so it looks like I’ll be working on this tomorrow in any case…

My muscles are aching this morning – probably as a result of a combination of the Parkinson’s Regeneration Training workshop and being cooped up in the car on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening for the journey to and from Kent.  It’s also raining here in Southrepps today, so the combination of aches and pains and the wet weather don’t exactly fire me with enthusiasm when the dog asks to go for a walk.  Nonetheless, we go for a walk – albeit a fairly brief one.

My new next door neighbour asks me for some help and advice – he’s renovating the house and wants to remove some wall lights from one of the bedrooms, and an electric heater and cast iron bath from the bathroom.  I take my electrical and plumbing tools with me, remove the wall lights and electric heater, help him to drain down his water system and tell him how to remove the bath (with a sledgehammer).

The dog and I have another (fairly brief) walk in the rain, and then I vacuum downstairs.  I don’t bother splitting logs today because the weather is fairly mild (if wet) and we are fast running out of firewood – the forecast is for snow at the weekend, so we will be grateful for a fire if the temperature plummets!

My wife lent her car to her eldest son’s fiancee for a couple of days while we were away, so this morning I drive her over to Hevingham so that she can go to work.  I’m feeling the effects of two busy days – I’m fatigued, my tremor is breaking through (left leg) quite strongly and dystonia in my right foot is most uncomfortable.  I’m not going to be doing a great deal today!

I read The Metro online when I get back to Southrepps, and then research courier prices for my wife (she needs to send a roll of fabric for her soft furnishings business).

Aside from that, I walk the dog, split a few logs and carry them indoors for this evening’s fire and have a quick go on my new mini motorised cycle, which seems to move around a little when you’re using it, so I think I need to construct something to keep it still (but definitely not today).

We are up, checked out of our hotel and on the way to Chatham (about 16 miles away) by about 8am.  We stop off at a local Asda supermarket to have some breakfast, and then arrive at the venue for the Parkinson’s Regeneration Training workshop in Chatham’s historic dockyard at about 9.50am.  It’s a full house of about 40 delegates (people with Parkinson’s and personal trainers wishing to learn how to help people with Parkinson’s) and Karl Sterling leads the workshop, educating the personal trainers and giving people with Parkinson’s some tools for dealing with the challenges of this condition and helping to improve quality of life.

The workshop ends at a little after 4pm, and my wife and I have a farewell drink in the bar with Karl, before heading back to Southrepps (collecting the dog on the way).

My wife and I are off to Kent this afternoon.  I am attending a Parkinson’s Regeneration Training workshop in Chatham tomorrow.  The workshop starts at 10am, so we decided to stay overnight in a nearby Travelodge so that were don’t have to get up too early to be there.  We take the dog over to Hevingham to stay with my wife’s youngest son and his wife, and then have a leisurely drive to the hotel.

Our friend Karl Sterling is over from America to run tomorrow’s workshop, and so we have arranged to meet at his hotel and have a bit of a chin wag and a few beers this evening.

I’ve had a busy day!  We have a new next door neighbour, and he is replacing the fence between our back gardens, so today he ripped out all of the rotten posts and panels -and, in doing so, made me feel motivated to get some stuff done, too.

My wife and I went out to North Walsham to get some basic groceries from Lidl and some vegetable seeds for our allotment from the local garden centre.  When we return to Southrepps my wife decides to clean her car, so while she’s doing that I break up some of the old fence panels in the back garden to use for kindling, fill the kindling basket that sits on the hearth next to the woodburner, split half a dozen logs for this evening and vacuum downstairs.

Our new neighbour has given us a composting bin that he found in his garden, so I balance it on top of my wife’s pink wheelbarrow and we head off to the allotment with it.   I dig and hoe a couple of beds while my wife plans out what we are going to plant in which bed.  Hopefully we will be able to keep a little more on top of things this year – last year was a bit of a disaster and we had extremely low yields (we spent more on seeds than it would have cost to buy the vegetables, several times over) and it was so disheartening to see the weeds taking over the beds.

By the time we return home, I’m exhausted and any thoughts I had been harbouring of having a go on my new motorised exercise cycle have now gone out of the window.  I light the fire and my wife prepares the soup…

It’s Friday, it’s vlog day and I’m having difficulty in choosing a subject.  I start researching Parkinson’s Disease sub-types, but soon realise that I’m going to need more than just a morning to research it.  I come across an article about a new diagnostic test for PD and so decide to talk about diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease.

I drink my tea and nutriblast, walk the dog, listen to PopMaster and then get stuck into researching and scripting my video.  I switch my neurostimulator over to group “A” settings while I film myself (for a clearer voice) but still am unhappy with how I sound – I have a lot of retakes (again) today.

I really want to spend an hour trying out my new electric exercise cycle (and another hour putting some wax on my nice clean car), but the day passes in a blur and before I know it my wife has arrived home (just as I’m uploading my weekly vlog to my YouTube channel).

My wife prepares our dinner (soup and soggy croutons again – I’m still having problems with chewing) while I quickly split a couple of logs and light the fire.

I have an appointment with the Parkinson’s nurse at North Walsham Cottage Hospital at 9am, so I hurriedly slosh down my mugs of tea (my nutriblast will have to wait until I return) and leave the house to drive to the hospital at 8.40am.  I arrive two minutes ahead of my appointment and am getting a little annoyed when I’m still sitting in the waiting room ten minutes later.  It turns out that the Parkinson’s nurse has made a couple of errors – she had booked my appointment at a different hospital at a different time, so I wasted my time this morning.  I cancel the appointment – I’ll send her a snotty email about it at some point.

A modicum of motivation appears to have surfaced, and I decide to wash the car (it’s absolutely covered in mud from driving down country lanes).   I wash and dry the car – it really needs a wax, but I don’t want to overdo things so I’ll hopefully do that over the next day or two.

My mini motorised cycle has arrived today, and I decide to do a product review video on it, so I set up the camera and tripod and film myself unpacking and assembling it.  I’ll film myself actually using the device once I’ve had time to familiarise myself with it.

I split a few logs, fill the log basket, vacuum downstairs and light the fire – I’m feeling much better about myself today!

One of my neighbours is having a fund raiser for the local church, so I feel obliged to go (even though I can think of far more deserving causes).  Doors open at 12pm for bowls of homemade soup, so I turn up at 12.30pm – there’s nothing worse than being the first to arrive!  It’s a very well attended event, and there are about 40 people crammed into my neighbour’s house – I end up sitting at a table with several familiar faces (people who’s faces I know from seeing them down at the allotments), and get chatting to a young couple with a 6 month old baby from a neighbouring village.  All in all, a very pleasant couple of hours was spent, and I got to know some new faces and put names to several others that I was familiar with but whose names I didn’t know.  I did notice that my tremor was breaking through significantly on both sides whilst I was there, probably because I felt a little uncomfortable being amongst so many people that I didn’t know.  Dyskinesia was very noticeable (to me) and I was terrified that I was going to flick a spoonful of soup over the tablecloth en-route to my mouth – luckily I managed to keep control and it didn’t happen.  My voice was reasonably good, though, so I didn’t have to keep repeating myself.

The dog is very pleased to see me when I return home – she’s used to me being there and really doesn’t like me to go out and leave her alone.  I take her for her afternoon stroll, and then light the fire (the first day for a long time that I haven’t had to split any logs – we didn’t burn them all last night) and vacuum downstairs before my wife returns from work.

I’m distinctly lacking motivation at the moment.  I have paperwork that needs to be sorted out, some of which will be of financial benefit to me, but I can’t seem to make myself sort it out.  I know there’s a problem when I can’t get myself to do things that I’d actually like to do – I know that sounds a little odd, but it’s the only way I can think of to describe the feeling.  At the end of another day when I haven’t achieved anything, I feel guilt and anger with myself , and this stresses me out and makes me anxious.   It isn’t that I actually do nothing (I still manage to walk the dog twice a day, split some logs for the fire and carry them indoors, vacuum downstairs and light the fire), I just can’t seem to achieve anything over and above these routine tasks.

I have a few online tasks lined up for today, which is just as well, really – although the sun is shining brightly this morning, it’s still damned cold out there!  I promised the physiotherapist that I would email her some links to information about forced exercise, so I spend a little time digging around on the internet, and then send her three or four of the best.  I need to buy a new blade unit for our nutribullet because the current one is as blunt as a very blunt thing, so I locate the best possible deal, and place an order online.  I email a couple of online vendors over sub-standard goods (some dog poop bags with holes in, and an engraved slate house sign that wasn’t correctly finished) and receive satisfactory responses from both.  I shop around for a travel insurance policy for when my wife and I go away later this year – such an unbelievable variation in prices and cover for one simple holiday; more evaluation required before I part with any cash!

I brave the cold weather for the usual dog walks and log splitting tasks, vacuum downstairs, clean out the woodburner and light the fire.

My voice is slightly better than it has been, but it’s still a bit of a struggle to make myself heard and understood.  Tremor is breaking through in my left leg, but it’s tolerable.  Muscular pain in my right arm has me reaching for the cannabis this evening.

We had a disturbed night last night – our youngest granddaughter (who stayed with us overnight) had a bit of an upset tummy last night, and is also full of cold. I have to say that my wife’s sleep was more disturbed than mine, because she dealt with the fallout!

My wife’s daughter-in-law came over to Southrepps and collected her daughter this afternoon, and my wife and I decide to go over to The Vernon Arms for a little while – there is live music in the bar this afternoon, and Sunday afternoons are usually pretty quiet in the pub.  Today it is absolutely packed with nowhere to sit – we have one quick drink and return home.

We sit in front of the fire, watch some telly and then get an early night (remembering to have a little cannabis before retiring).

After the higher temperatures of the last few days, it’s a bit of a shock to wake up to a dusting of snow, and it continues snowing (on and off) all day. There’s a strong, bitterly cold wind blowing as well, making the dog walks a little more brief than usual.  I stay in the house as much as possible, but make an exception when I split a few logs and fill the log basket for the fire.  We are babysitting our youngest granddaughter overnight tonight, so I light the fire a little earlier than usual, construct the fireguard and install the stairgate while my wife drives over to Hevingham to collect her.

My voice is still weak and strangling my sentences, but at least it doesn’t keep packing up on me like it was yesterday evening.  Tremor is breaking through quite strongly in my left leg, and dystonia in my right foot is a bit of a nuisance, too.  My balance is a little out of kilter as well – I’m catching myself from falling quite a lot today.  My walking is definitely stilted.

Another day of writing scripts, this time it’s for my weekly vlog.  I have decided to talk about forced exercise for Parkinson’s, since that is a subject that is in the front of my mind at the moment.   I manage to find lots of information about it online, but most of it is in quite technical language and I like to make my videos to be informative yet accessible.  I spend a lot of time extracting the essence of the studies, and trying to put them into my own words (which isn’t always as easy as it sounds).

I change my neurostimulator over to group “A” settings because I feel that my voice is slightly better on those settings, but I still sound hoarse and indistinct (to my ears) and I have loads of re-takes when I’m trying to video myself.  I feel that if it weren’t for the fact that I put subtitles on all of my videos, then I would struggle to understand what I’m saying (or perhaps that’s because my hearing is also not what it once was?).

By the time my wife arrives home from work, I’m ready to upload the completed video to my YouTube channel, and my voice has deteriorated even further – to the point where I am trying to talk to my wife, and nothing comes out.  I try changing my device back to group “B” settings, but I think that fatigue is the culprit today (I didn’t sleep well last night).  I didn’t have any cannabis yesterday, and that’s the price I paid…

I am being interviewed for the Doctor Frank website this afternoon. I received a message on Twitter a few days ago asking me if I would be prepared to do it, and I agreed (subject to the provision of the interview questions in advance).  I received a list of questions yesterday afternoon, so today I spend virtually the complete day scripting my responses to these questions – I have to script my responses these days because mild cognitive impairment means that my flow of words stops when I’m under pressure, and being interviewed definitely puts me under pressure.

I takes a few short breaks to walk the dog (twice) and to split some logs and carry them indoors, but the rest of the time is spent scripting on my iPad.  Before I know it, it’s 5.30pm and Doctor Frank’s video producer is calling me on Skype. The interview goes well with only three interruptions – one phone call from person unknown (they rang off before I could get to answer it), one dog demanding to be let in from the back garden, and one phone call from my wife to ask how the interview went…

I make the lounge look like a lounge again by removing the lighting gear and tripods, vacuum downstairs, light the fire and put the dinner on (soup and soggy croutons again).

I have an appointment with the physiotherapist today, and I’m hopeful that they will be able to help me address the muscular weakness in my legs, which had been giving me much caused for concern in recent months.  I had read about forced exercise (using a powered cycle) as therapy to strengthen leg muscles, and when I mentioned this to my Parkinson’s nurse she told me that the physiotherapy department had the necessary equipment, and that she would refer me for a course of treatment.  I arrived at the North Walsham Cottage Hospital in plenty of time, was greeted by one of the physiotherapists and shown into an office, where she questioned me about my Parkinson’s symptoms and made me demonstrate various muscle movements.  After she had finished making notes, I mentioned forced exercise.  She looked at me blankly and told me she wasn’t sure what I meant, so I explained about powered cycles and how they were being utilised (to great benefit) to build leg muscle and improve motor symptoms in people with Parkinson’s.   She told me that they did have some powered cycles, but she wasn’t sure that they would be suitable for the application that I had described, so I promised to email her some links to more information on the internet so that she could read some more on the subject – I find it slightly disturbing that a physiotherapist (and a Parkinson’s nurse) are completely unaware of this treatment, given that they are dealing with people with Parkinson’s all the time (particularly the Parkinson’s nurse).

I’m still feeling a little below par, and still not really doing very much.  I need to return the blood pressure monitor to my doctor’s surgery today – my readings over the last 7 days have all been consistently abnormally high, but not officially classified as high, so it’ll be interesting to hear what my doctor has to say on the matter.  I drive over to Aldborough as soon as the essentials are out of the way (mugs of tea, nutriblast, dog walk and PopMaster) and drop the little machine off – I expect they will be in contact if they need to be…

I split a few logs (enough to top up the log basket) for this evening, vacuum downstairs and then light the fire.  Muscular pain in my right arm has me reaching for my vaporiser to administer a little cannabis.  Tremor is a little better than yesterday, as is dystonia.  Balance is okay, but my walking isn’t going to win me any prizes for elegance.

I’m feeling a little “down in the dumps” today – don’t know why, but maybe it’s to do with the sadness I felt yesterday about not having a mum to spoil on Mothering Sunday.

I really can’t be bothered to do anything apart from the usual chores, so I occupy myself by walking the dog, splitting a few logs and filling the log basket for this evening, preparing an invoice for one of my wife’s customers, and walking the dog again.

I receive a phone call from the production company that filmed me last year for a Channel 4 health programme (about medicinal cannabis), just letting me know that the programme will probably be aired in May now.  To tell you the truth, it’s been so long since the film crew visited that I’d pretty much forgotten about it.  Still, hopefully it will come at a convenient time, publicity-wise, because Paul Flynn’s Elizabeth Brice Bill will (hopefully) get a second reading in the House of Commons just a few weeks afterwards.

I’m getting quite a lot of tremor breaking through on my left side (mainly my leg), so I decide to switch my neurostimulator over to group “A” settings to see if that will help.  It is an improvement, so I stick with those settings until evening, when my wife mentions that I don’t seem myself.  I switch back to group “B” settings even though I’m not convinced that this is the reason for me not seeming to be myself.

Mothering Sunday, and it’s the first time in my 56 years that I don’t have my mum.  It feels strange not to be giving her a card, some flowers, chocolates…   After lunch we drive over to Worstead (via Lidl in North Walsham for some flowers, general groceries and a couple of beers) to wish my wife’s mother a happy mother’s day, and then we go to Hevingham so that my wife can see her sons (and partners, and grandchildren) so that they can wish her a happy mother’s day, too.  We are both treated to a superb roast dinner, and don’t get back home until after 9pm.

Tremor persists in my left leg, and I’m still uncomfortable with muscular tension in my arms and across my shoulders, so I have some cannabis and a beer before going to bed – much better!

My wife is off to Hevingham this morning – she has to return our eldest granddaughter to her parents, and then she is going to go to work.  I’m going to be lounging around at home, as usual.  I remove the fireguard from around the woodburner and dismantle the stairgate at the bottom of the stairs – hastily installed yesterday evening when my wife called to say that our eldest granddaughter was coming to stay for the night.   After walking the dog, I take a break and sit down on the sofa to post some links to my latest vlog on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and read The Metro online.  Then I clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher, tidy the lounge, split a few logs, fill the log basket and vacuum downstairs.

I turned my neurostimulator off this afternoon.  I wanted to see what it would be like without my DBS; see how much my Parkinson’s has progressed since I last turned it off – I think the last time I turned it off was when I made my second tremor control video in April 2017.  It didn’t stay off for very long today (maybe a minute) – my tremor is much stronger than I remember it, much stronger in my head and neck, and I was very glad to switch the power back on again.  It seems churlish, after that, to complain about (or even mention) the tremor that is breaking through in my left leg – it’s tolerable!  Muscular tension in my arms and across my shoulders is pretty uncomfortable, as is dystonia in my right foot, so I self-medicate with some cannabis, which makes it less of an issue.

I have a 10am appointment with the speech therapist in Norwich this morning, so I’m out of bed at 7.30 and take the dog for an early walk. I slosh down a couple of mugs of tea and leave the house at just before 8.45 to drive to Norwich.

I have been waiting for this appointment with great anticipation, hoping that they will be able to suggest ways of overcoming my eating problems (the muscles in my face and mouth are becoming less effective at doing their jobs, and I keep biting the inside of my mouth and my tongue – very painful!), so I’m very disappointed when the therapist tells me that she doesn’t have any answers.  She says that she will email me the instructions for some exercises that I can try, but its possible that these exercises will cause my problems to worsen – terrific!

I return to Southrepps for a frustrating afternoon of filming myself for my vlog – my voice is weak today, and I keep getting the cadence and rhythm of sentences wrong; twice as many re-takes as usual!

I finish editing my video, upload it to my YouTube channel and publish it by the time my wife arrives home from work with our eldest granddaughter in tow – she is staying with us tonight because her mummy isn’t feeling very well this evening!

I’m feeling fairly unmotivated at the moment, so another grey and wet day doesn’t do much for my state of mind.  At least it isn’t raining when I take the dog for her morning walk.

I need to research and script my weekly vlog today, because I have a speech therapy appointment in Norwich tomorrow morning, so that will be half the day written off.  I’m not really motivated to do that, either, and so I spend most of the day doing other “stuff” – splitting logs and filling the log basket, cleaning the windows of the woodburner, reading The Metro online, walking the dog (again) and lighting the fire.

I eventually start research and scripting at around 2pm, and I have just about finished the script at 8.15pm when my wife phones to let me know she’s on her way home from work.  I prepare our meal (soup and soggy croutons again) – she’s not had a great day, and it’s the least I can do…

It’s another grey and wet day in Southrepps, which is the perfect excuse for staying indoors and doing very little – not that I need an excuse…  I do have some admin tasks to get out of the way, so I make a start on filling out some forms connected with my mother’s estate (that I was supposed to have done yesterday).  I get bogged down with the complexity of the forms, and I really need to involve my two brothers, so I file the partially completed forms away for another day (possibly tomorrow).

I receive a phone call from the speech therapist that the Parkinson’s nurse referred me to – she has an appointment for me this Friday morning at 10am in Norwich, which will mean an early start (and also interferes with my weekly vlog; not complaining, just saying!).  I’m relieved that I have an appointment at last, and hope they can help me with my eating problems – I do enjoy soup, but I’d like to get back to eating “normal” food without also biting my cheek, or lip, or tongue.

It stops raining long enough for the dog to take me for an afternoon walk, and then I light the fire and scan some documents in to my MacBook that my wife wanted me to scan in.  A quick vacuuming of downstairs, and then I can relax with a little cannabis (to calm my left leg tremor, which is breaking through quite strongly, and lessen the muscular pain in my right arm).

I receive a phone call from Aldborough Surgery telling me that they have a blood pressure monitor for me to collect -my blood pressure was slightly high when they took it recently, and they want me to take readings at home, twice a day for the next week.  So, after walking the dog I drive over to Aldborough and collect the machine.  I note that (on my first attempt) my blood pressure is higher than it should be, but not officially classified as abnormally high – hopefully I can log some more “normal” readings over the coming week, otherwise (no doubt) they will want to prescribe something to tackle it.

My wife is expecting a representative from one of the companies that she orders fabric from (for her soft furnishings business) to visit us late this afternoon, so I make sure that the house is clean and tidy, dog walked, wellies and dog walking paraphernalia stashed out of sight, etc.  The representative arrives just before 5pm, and it’s after 7pm by the time she departs.

Symptom check – balance and walking are reasonably okay; voice is weak and strangling my sentences; tremor in my left leg is intermittent, but not too much of a problem; muscular weakness in my legs is still causing me to struggle standing up; muscular weakness and stiffness in my right arm is definitely improved (pain-wise) by a little cannabis.

Dinner, beer, a little (more) cannabis and an early night.

I receive more paperwork to fill out for my mother’s estate in the post this morning – I have a read through it to see what I need to do, have a telephone conversation with my younger brother (in which I promise to deal with it by the end of tomorrow) and file it away until tomorrow.

At least the weather is clear and dry today, and the temperature is positively spring-like (10 degrees Celsius) – a very pleasant change from the last week or so.  I take the dog for a quick walk after I’ve finished my tea and nutriblast, and before PopMaster, and then catch up on the latest news by reading The Metro online. I split a few logs and bring them in for a fire later on, although it’s really not cold enough to justify it – I just like having the fire lit!

I’m starting to get quite concerned about muscular weakness in my legs – I squatted down to clean up after the dog this morning, and had a hell of a struggle to stand up again, and this afternoon I’m struggling to stand up from a sitting position on the sofa.  This was precisely the reason that I asked the Parkinson’s nurse to refer me for some physiotherapy, which I still haven’t heard about – I’ll have to start giving her a hard time about it if I haven’t heard anything by the time of my next appointment (in a couple of weeks time).  I have also been suffering with Restless Legs Syndrome for the last couple of weeks when I go to bed.  Only in my left leg, but it is very annoying and, I feel, further evidence of disease progression that is going on behind the scenes.

I haven’t had any cannabis during the day today, and muscular pain in my right arm is definitely more of an issue – I decide to self-medicate this evening when I’m also having a beer.

Another lazy day (for me), another day at work (for my wife).  It’s much warmer in Southrepps today – the snow has now mostly melted, leaving great puddles of melt water.  It started to rain (quite heavily) just after lunchtime, and has been raining steadily all afternoon, so I’m glad that I got the logs in for tonight’s fire before it started.   Apart from walking the dog, that’s about all that I have done today – I feel guilty that I haven’t achieved anything at all.  I had intended to burn my neighbour’s safari holiday videos to DVD, but I haven’t finished reading up on how to use the iDVD software yet, so I didn’t make any progress with that.

I lit the fire mid-afternoon, and sat in front of it with my iPad while I surfed around various Parkinson’s websites and groups, filling time.

Another dusting of snow overnight, but it is just a dusting!  It’s certainly not going to stop my wife from going to work today, so we’re out of bed early (for a Saturday) and she has left for Hevingham by 9am.  I don’t feel like doing very much or going very far, even though the high winds are gone and it doesn’t feel so bitterly cold outside – it is still cold and horrible out there.  I drink my mugs of tea and my nutriblast while I check social media and reply to a couple of messages that I have received, and then the dog and I go for a little stumble (in the snow, ice and slush) around the field by the village hall.  While I’m still dressed for the cold, I fill the log basket with sufficient firewood to keep us warm this evening.  I then clean the windows of the woodburner, run the vacuum cleaner around downstairs, and light the fire.

My voice is stronger this morning, and I don’t sound like I’m half-cut (not to my ears, anyway).   Annoying (but tolerable) tremor is in my left leg.   I self-medicated with some cannabis this morning, and I feel that that has helped with the pain of muscular stiffness and weakness.  My balance is only slightly off and my walking isn’t quite so stilted as it has been.   Perhaps I have been under-medicated – I’ll monitor these symptoms in relation to my cannabis use…

It’s still below freezing and fairly windy in Southrepps, but at least there hasn’t been any further snowfall.  My wife decides to go to work, hoping that the main roads will have been cleared by now.

I brave the bitter cold to take the dog for a short walk, and to bring in some logs from the back garden for this evening’s fire.

It’s time for my weekly vlog, so I select a subject and start researching and scripting.  My voice is playing me up again today, and I have many, many re-takes during filming before I’m satisfied (and I still think my voice is slurred and indistinct).  I upload my video to YouTube, and post links to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as will as to a number of online forums, before my wife arrives home (late) just before 8.30pm.

No additional snow last night, but freezing temperatures and high winds mean that the local roads are extremely hazardous – icy and covered in drifting snow.  My wife leaves the house to drive to her workshop in Hevingham, but 10 minutes later she has returned – apparently the main road is closed at Aylsham.  She spends the day cleaning and tidying instead of making the curtains that she really wants to be doing.

I really don’t like this weather, so my aim is to stay in the house as much as possible, preferably close to the fire.  I do venture out a couple of times to walk the dog (with my wife), and again to fetch a basketful of logs from the back garden.  I light the fire at 11.30am – the earliest that I have lit it this winter, but then this is the coldest that it has been this winter.

I read The Metro online, and then spend the afternoon researching subjects for this week’s vlog.

My voice is still much stronger than it has been for weeks, although it gets progressively weaker as the day wears on.  Tremor isn’t bothering me at all.  Muscular weakness and stiffness in my right arm is most uncomfortable.  My walking and balance are both pants today, although they have both been fairly rubbish for quite a while.