Just received a call from Mum.

For the uninitiated, we lost Dad last year and since then we have noticed a decline in her mental health.

She nursed him for forty years and now that he’s gone it’s like she’s letting go.

The call this evening followed one this morning when she asked for a lift over to Oldham Royal for an X-ray.

We said we’d happily pick her up and bring her back.

She has then spent the day trying to phone my brother to give me a message to drive her to the hospital tomorrow. She’d lost my phone number, completely forgotten the call and been panicking all day.

When I reminded her of the call she initially said “I’ll have to take your word for that.” Later she said “It’s Oldham Royal, I told you that this morning.”

Her Mother had dementia and passed in her late 70’s. Her decline was quite rapid.

Gill’s reaction was to suggest we get her assessed again.

In the past she hasn’t been helpful, almost talking herself out of help in the home when Dad was bad.

We’re with her for a few hours tomorrow so may be able to see how she is.

She seems mostly lucid for the moment. It’s the fuzzy moments that concern us.

Just spent the day in a hospital with Mum.

We picked her up as arranged at 9 only to listen to her rambling account of another imagined intruder in her garden.

She told the tale twice, once with me in the house as I checked for security and again in the car.

The versions differed hugely so we’ve chosen to take them with a pinch of salt.

While Gill parked the car, I walked her to X-ray who denied all knowledge of her.

Fortunately, I know enough about hospital intranet to know the operator could see where Mum should have been.

At first the receptionist baulked at this but her colleague leant over and pressed Button B and Shazzam! Mum’s actual appointment appeared in the Endoscopy department. She scowled at me while Mr Smartypants Colleague told us how to get there.

It made more sense than her insistence that they wanted to X-ray her gullet and bowel.

After an irritating hour watching various grades of numpty wander around the department with various fingers shoved into various orifices they finally took Mum in.

The upshot is that she has a Hiatus Hernia which after 3G Goo.gling I now know is a prolapse of the stomach through the diaphragm causing acid to spill into your gullet. It’s caused by obesity, poor diet and some other stuff that Mum is going to have to get on top of.

This 5 hour jaunt has gobbled up most of a day off but probably points the way to much of my time in the future as Mum’s mental health declines.

Couldn’t let her do it on her own though, could I?

Up with the birdies this morning.

Eldest daughter had yet another session in central Manchester.

Her commitment to NCS is possible only because of our taxiing service.

I’ll never get used to leaving her on a street corner though. Feels negligent but I suppose they have to grow up sometime.

There’s only one more of these after today in which they’ll be doing whatever community based project there been planning for the last month.

Manchesters spooky without cars. Tempting to floor it like I’m on GTA.

Off to work now with Ash to pick up some printer ink. He loves the outing and zooms around the aisles on his k-walker (picture to follow).

A little disturbed to find a stash of (still packaged) sanitary towels under Jos pillow while looking for uniform laundry.

We don’t think she’s “started” yet but, true to form, is hoarding supplies for the time. Silly really as Gill buys plenty in for Hev and her. 

Another conundrum.

Have a good one. X

“Positivity” is a term I first met when in college.

At the time it seemed to sum up some of the more iritating people on campus.

Their constant smiles and cheery nature grated. We were students and as such had a right, nay a duty, to be sceptical, argumentative and bloody miserable.

In the intervening years I’ve heard more about Positive Mental Attitude and have even mentioned its importance in my blog posts.

Realistically we can’t live a life full PMA. We all have our ups and downs.

But it does have its uses.

Focusing on the task in hand is easier for me if I concentrate on the “do-able”.

At work, folk who exude negativity are often tied up in conversation or monologues about how hard things are, how unfair the world is and the impossibility of doing the job. They lack energy and drive and seemingly look for obstacles rather than goals.

I have to be vague, for obvious reasons, but yesterday we were up against it. I grafted from 6am and was joined by a colleague who later said she was impressed by my attitude, baring in mind the mostrous task we had in front of us. She stayed an extra hour and we were both “buzzing” but exhausted when we clocked out.

When it’s going well you feel almost detached from the task and are quietly shocked at how quickly the mountain disappears. At one point I was even singing Happy Talk!

The contrast with someone feeling negative is even more obvious when your buzzing. One person came in and sounded so whiny. They complained about their task which paled into insignificance compared to what we’d been doing all day. They wandered off and chatted to colleagues and looked for opportunities to get off task. 

No doubt I shall be picking up some of their work today.

One thing is for sure though, I cant keep this thing up forever. Its exhausting!

Just read an article on the BBC by Rebecca Atkinson, a guest blogger on the BBC’s Ouch page.

The site focuses on disability and is usually a good read.

Rebecca asks us if it is time for the term Disabled to be given a makeover, which I believe means “be replaced”.

She’s the lady who campaigned for ToysLikeMe which encouraged manufacturers to include disabled kids in their dolly range. (fab idea and a good step towards inclusion and normalising disability)

By the end of her article she is swayed back to a neutral viewpoint by a conversation with Tom Shakespeare. 

Tom is a favourite of mine. His articles and podcasts about disability are insightful and grounded.

He rightly pointed out that it isn’t the names that matter but the attitude that needs to shift.

I have to agree with him. Disability, or whatever you choose to call it is all around us.

Anything which stops us living a “normal” life is a disability. It might be slight, slowing us down or making movement a little more difficult or it could be completely debilitating, forcing us into a wheelchair or a hospital bed.

Unfortunately, society is becoming voyeuristic. The abnormal is seen as public property.

My son, Ashley, is gawped at by every passer by, some kindly, some I half expect to get their phones out and take a picture.

Evidence of society’s increasing voyeurism is the prevalent attitude or belief that disability is always visible. Folk getting out of a car in a disabled bay are chastised if they haven’t got a wheelchair or a cane or an obvious and oh-so-interesting disfigurement or missing limb.

This attitude, that a visible difference gives folk a right to stare, must end.

It places the disability above the person.

Call it what you will, be it disabled, challenged, special or (ick) a super power, when our bodies and minds are broken or malformed we are still essentially human beings. The strongest and most successful of “disabled” people often don’t see themselves as such. It does not define them. They see it as one aspect of their lives.

We should all learn this lesson.

Just laughed ourselves silly over a comment made by someone close-ish to us.

She keeps a blog herself so should know the importance of doing a bit of research before you blurt things out.

The story goes thus: A friend of hers has been told that her son, who by the sound of it, has some form of autism, isn’t having his statement reviewed for two years. When the possibility of him going to our son’s Special School came up my blogger acquaintance declared that he “wouldn’t improve there”.

This is wrong on so many counts.

1. Reviews of Educational Statements are statutory and annual.

2. Statements are no more. They have morphed this year into Education Health Care Plans as per the Children and Families Act 2014, giving a more holistic approach to Special Needs Children.

3. The last two inspections of the school have both produced top marks in all areas. This school is one of the best, filled with expert and caring professionals.

Gill feels that this person has a “problem” with Ashley, never speaking to him or even acknowledging him. We’ve met this before and work to overcome it by encouraging conversation with him and about him.

When she made the comment, Ashley’s Godmother was part of the group and she waded in to defend the school. You go girl.

What’s the saying? Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt?

My mate Mushy Cloud posted these questions as part of Share Your World.

So, being somewhat under par and firing on only three cylinders, I’ve purloined them.

Are you usually late, early, or right on time? 

I’ve always been a stickler, from school days and right through work. I get antsy when people turn up late for appointments and feel physically uncomfortable if we arrange a time to leave and people are faffing about. My oldest daughter has inherited this trait from me and gets quite upset if she’s on minutes.

If you were or are a writer do you prefer writing short stories, poems or novels?

Does blogging count?

I’ve done a few rewrites of songs which people found amusing and I can make stuff up at the drop of a hat when I’m in form.

A novel feels like quite an endeavour. Maybe short stories would suit me better. My Mum’s always been a story teller, more so lately as her memory slips.

Where did you live at age ten?  Is it the same place or town you live now?

Maidstone Mosque.

Don’t laugh. It’s not as outlandish as it seems. When I turned 10 my Dad was in a rehabilitation centre recovering from a massive car smash which invalided him. He was a Salvation Army Officer at Maidstone Corps in Melbourne. Streetview tells me that t’s now a mosque. It hasn’t changed structually but has been painted a uniform white and had bits added to it.

Would you rather be able to fly or breathe under water?

Definitely a flier me. Always dreamt of it as a kid.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

My ill health over the weekend has once again told me that being generally robust is a blessing. I’ve just turned 50 plus a bit (I know, I know, it’s so hard to believe, isn’t it?) and barring a few aches and pains I enjoy a glow I really don’t deserve..

This next week is full of appointments and half term shenanigans. Mum will no doubt pull something out of the hat. She now talks darkly of me removing all the food from her house and actually got Gill to do a shop for her. The food was months out of date and we offered on the day to help her replace it btw.

Well that was fun. I promise to do a “proper” post when my head clears a bit.

Honest.

Apparently, if all goes well and the wind is blowing in the right direction, I shall be posting this directly from MS Word.

I recently started subscribing to the Office app having been away in the land of free WP apps for some years.

There’s a one off logging in process which didn’t stretch my brain too much and then you get a modified Word page to fill in.

Hope it works because I prefer Word to the “New Page” on WP. You go “whole screen” straight away and can see more of your writing.

See if it works, eh?

My other blog event was discovering that someone in the family has started to read everything I write.

I’m not really that bothered because, as the label says, I write what I want and if you don’t like it, don’t read it.

My health has been appalling recently. I took some time off work and immediately fell ill with a bug which went through my head, sinuses and chest like a freight train. Returning to work early only served to lay me up for another couple of days. The bug seems to have departed, fingers crossed.

It’s with huge delight that I let you all in on my, or I should say “our”, weight loss.

Gill and I are both a bit podgy and decided at the beginning of October to do something about it.

My dieting philosophy has always been a simple one.

Eat Less, Do More.

Eating less refers to sugars, fats and evening snacks of any sort.

Doing more is obviously about getting off one’s bum and getting out there.

We both now fast after 7pm and Gill has started walking to town and back.

My job means way more than 10,000 steps on each shift so that’s the physical side taken care of.

The fridge is full of fruit and we’ve been finding different ways to cook chicken too.

Takeaways have stopped and Gill has started at Slimming World in a local church hall.

We’ve both lost a half a stone (7lbs) and are cheerful about continuing.

We’ve been tied up with paperwork and contractors arranging to turn Ashley’s bathroom into a wet room.

As he gets bigger it is harder to move him into the bath and he refuses the hoist now.

It’s only a week’s work but you’d think they were planning a hospital wing!

We’re off to a friend’s 18^th tonight. Me and Ash won’t stay long and I will endeavour to stay away from the buffet.

Well maybe just one éclair…..

Apparently, the goings on here in Casa Crazy are beginning to take their toll on me.

A recent check-up revealed a high blood pressure reading. So, they gave me a 24 hour monitor to wear.

The irony of the stress this induced wasn’t lost on my doctor. Half hour whining from the phone-sized pump on my hip through the night was one thing. But finding a quiet five minutes during a working day was nigh impossible.

So he’s asked me to buy a cuff of my own (about £20 in the pharmacy) and do my own measurements while resting three times a week until early February then return for blood tests and a follow up.

He tells me that hypertension has no obvious symptoms other than, eventually, stroke or heart attack.

There’s a cheery thought.

I’m a time bomb.

—————

Diagnoses for the youngster (7) are hovering around epilepsy.

Ashley’s psoriasis is flaring up again.

Gill’s back at the doc soon to up her anxiety meds.

Mum’s odd behaviour is levelling out. She seems quite ill quite often which is a worry. Judging by some of the antique food we removed from the fridge it might be self induced.

The teens are the teens and continue to fill our lives with unbridaled joy.

Please keep writing as I do still read everything.

It started with an appointment with a counsellor for Gill. Think therapist but not American Style.

After a number of weeks she’s being let go. Her diet is sensible and working and she’s going to a slimming club. Her moods are stable and she’s good with the meds. She even cracked a joke or two.

We picked up some Xmas gifts we’d ordered online and our Click-and-collect grocery shopping too.

After putting it all away, Gill fell asleep so I went for a walk: just over three miles and much of it on an old railway line, now a well tarred path.

Just found this. Its not me but it is where I walked today. The sculpture at two minutes which looks like Santa is actually of someone I know. He’s called David too and was an art teacher for years and is now President of the local art soc. I went to school with his son. The houses at 9 minutes are where we lived for a few months in between houses.
I used to walk all over the county, easily more than 20 miles to the next towns and back to do a bit of shopping.

The last twenty years have been more sedentary. Gill and I are different folk and walking was something I learned to forgo many years ago.

Today was an eye opener though. I started to loosen up and noticed how many people, walking dogs or with a friend, smiled and nodded as they passed.

I can remember walking long distance but I’d forgotten how calm it makes you feel. 

I would pack a lunch and stop and sit on a stone wall and just look and listen.

There are housing estates I saw being built, schools long disappeared, even roads now absorbed into new estates or bypasses. 

Of course in those days we didn’t have mobile phones and apps. I used MapMyWalk today which congratulated me at the end of every mile and gave me my pace times and even calories burned.

Not sure I needed to know all that but she has a pleasant voice.

After the kids arrived home, something on the scale of the Landing of Normandy Beaches judging by the mess they made, I set to playing with our new soup maker (bit of a cross between a large kettle and a blender.)

Minestrone a la Dave n Gill is definitely on the menu from now on. Yum.

Gill, having just come in from a trip to town has launched out again to get a temporary phone from a friend while hers goes back, so it’s just me and the bairns for another bedtime. 

We’re getting good at it. Plenty of practice. Supper, PJs, inhaler, seizure drugs, growth hormone injection, incontinence pads, cuddles…….

For Today… 15th December 2015

Outside my window… it’s lobbing it down. Cosy inside but I’ve got a full shift this afternoon.

I am thinking… about Tim Peake. They’ve made his story very human and easy to read. His kids were so excited but you could see the concern in his Mum’s eyes. Ironically, in the infinite reaches of space, it all looks a bit claustrophobic up there.

I am thankful … for my family’s health. Touch wood.

My thoughts are with … some close friends who are debt ridden and may have just gone a bit deeper with a large Xmas loan.

I am wearing… a superman blue charity hoodie for Super Josh.

I am creating… three kick ass daughters, judging by conversations I’ve had over the last few days.

I am going… to get wet if I stick to my walking regime.

I am wondering… why folk leave Xmas to the last minute. We’ve had lots of practice and are ready apart from the fresh shop near the day. Mums coming, presents are wrapped, decs are up….. But I know many will be wandering around aimlessly or frantically with their cash in their mits buying stuff they dont need.

I am reading… up on hypertension. I think the readings they took were duff but will get a monitor anyway.

I am hoping… Mum’s spirits pick up for the festives. Might take her to  Christingle….

I am learning… that controlling my diet is do-able. Most of a stone lighter after 6 weeks of being good and feeling it every day. Pains I had have gone and I feel less lethargic.

In my garden… oo that sounds grand: its a yard, folks, and most of that is a ramp. Full of bins borrowed from a neighbour while shes in Oz til New Year. We’re having a good clear out and the binspace comes in handy.

In my kitchen… the soup maker is clean and ready for tonight. There’s wrapping paper in case we still need it and a few packs of cards for last minute wishes.

A favourite quote for today: What we think, we become. Buddha.

One of my favourite things… sitting planning with Gill and tea.

Bit of a slide show to follow. Normal Xmas stuff but the one with Ashley and his Nana was just after he’d done his Jai Ho dance at school and he’s wearing a kurta.

Life is a tapestry, someone once said: Pretty to look at but when you get up close there are a lot of repairs, mismatched threads, moth holes and frayed ends…. And it smells a bit. However, it all blends into a beautiful whole when you take a few steps back.

Or maybe I just made that up..

Anyhoo, Life for me is a list.

The List.

It never gets completed like the Task Lists that were so popular a few years back.

It seems to get longer as time goes on and only shuffles itself without you noticing.

It’s two sided.

The good and the Bad.

Here’s mine.

1. Gill has started having hot flushes and dizzy spells

   But Gill has lost over a stone since early October.

2. Mum is showing signs of dementia

   But Mum is beginning to cope with losing Dad a year ago.

3. Ashley has life-long disabilities

   But Ashley is a fantastic, sociable bundle of Love.

4. Cerys may have epilepsy and is a bed wetter

   But Cerys is very intelligent and will excel.

5. I may have high blood pressure    after a GP test.

   ButI bought a monitor which says I haven’t.

6. Age makes me ache.

   But My peers all look older than me.

It’s not comprehensive. Things loom and fade from day to day.

But it’s always there.

The List.

You got one?

I’m quietly grinding my teeth and counting to ten.

Background: I left home but always went to my Mum’s for Xmas. When Gill and I wed, we both went to Mum’s and travelled to her Mum’s in the evening. Eventually, as our girls grew we brought Mum and Dad to our house on the day and brought Gill’s folks over on Boxing Day. Now it’s just Mum who comes to us on Xmas Day.

We’ve just had a call from the Dear Lady asking about a gift for Cerys.

At the end of it she said that “if all else fails” she had two options for Xmas. She could come to us or go for a meal with all the biddies in the local church hall.

😱

Bear in mind that neither of my brothers make any effort at Xmas. Some years they don’t send cards. They phone, sometimes.

We go and get her and take her home, walking her in and making sure she’s okay before leaving.

I was really shocked.

Does she want an over the top response so that she can go and play the martyr in church, saying her family don’t want her?

It does make me wonder how much of the way my brothers’ behaviour is contrived by her or even constructed by her behaviour.

If you drive people away you can say you’re alone and unloved and play the hard-done-by.

She’s seen my kids every week of their lives (barring illness and holidays) and always been made welcome. Ashley sits with her, Cerys chats about her tablet and games she plays. The older girls have started visiting her too. We are only a phone call away if she needs help or a bit of shopping.

It’s exasperating as there’s no cause. She is and always will be welcome and we have told her this many times.

Thoughts?

Ashley and Nana at his Xmas Dance performance

Ashley and his Nana

Visiting Nana

Hello again.

Christmas was a blast and almost completely lacking in chaos and tears.

The day after saw floods in the area much like those in Chennai.

A pub collapsed into a river about three miles from my house and the debris floated down the swollen river to damage and in one case destroy the bridges.

Mum called in a panic as the flood water approached along her street but a quick chat from yours truly about the local geography calmed her a bit

(basically the river rose and cut a corner in a meander – she lived beyond the meander and her house is slightly elevated – so the river flowed off of it’s course at a bridge, down her street and back into itself about 100 feet from her cottage)

Top to bottom of the map.

The power went out and with it her heating so she stayed with a friend until the nice man from the power company sorted things out.

Much fuss was made on the news about the government not planning for the deluge but frankly, you buy a house on a flood plain …… (the clue’s in the name)

Gill’s been to the house and discretely removed foodstuffs which must have defrosted in the 24 hours the power was out.

New Year was quiet for me. Gill partied with friends while I stayed in. Horses for Courses.

And so another New Year begins. Full of promise and potential.

Just be nice to those you meet and love those who matter the most.

In a vain attempt to improve myself I’ve taken to walking.

Of course I have walked before.

Become quite good at it, in fact, from rather a young age.

Still do, if there isn’t a Sedan Chair and liveried footmen on hand.

The walking I do now is usually about 3 and a half miles and in long loops close to home.

I use an App(lication) on my eye-phone called Map My Walk which uses GPS (satellites I’m guessing) to track my whereabouts.

It also tells me my mile split times (at best just under 12 minutes, at worst nearly 17), calories burned (usually around 400) and steps taken (about 8000).

She, for it has a lady’s voice, talks to me at the end of every mile to give me statistics. I’m not exactly sure what she’s saying because, as with all female voices, most of what has been said is missed by the time I notice I’m being spoken to. I do, of course, find myself saying “hmm” and “yes,dear” as is the norm with my good lady wife.

But nothing’s actually going in.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Today I was walking a mile or so down The Lines, a lovely long path which was once a railway line and is now a tarred walkway complete with the odd sculpture and bland bridge.

Past me came a-whizzing lycra-clad young ladies on brand new bikes and gaudy helmets, each with a distinct brown stripe up there back.

Apparently it’s de rigueur to not have a rear mud guard.

Barmy.

Maybe it’s a badge of honour to arrive home with your brown skunk stripe stretching from bum to neck? Just seems a bit silly to me.

Anyhoo, I shall continue my walking habit for the foreseeable as it is helping me to lose some weight and am sure it will lower my blood pressure.

In other news,

• Gill has a new toy which cuts, slices and dices veg. It’s a box with blades in the lid and cost a tenner. She’s happy. (no she’s not, it’s just gone in the bin!)
• Ashley’s four monthly supply of pads has arrived so the back room resembles a warehouse once again.
• The builders move in on Monday to convert his bathroom into a wet room (pictures to follow)
• Heather is enjoying her weekend work but is struggling with coursework and wonky knees
• Cerys has an EEG and will have a 24 hour ECG in time
• The old washing machine died and has been replaced – happens every three years on average
• Our neighbour has returned from her Ozzy adventure with much to say but no gifts (as promised) to reward our house sitting endeavours. Truth be told we didn’t expect anything. Meh.

Mother Dear is coping well having narrowly missed her house being flooded. She now sees it all as a big adventure, the details of which change with each telling. Her church was completely flooded so she feels a bit put out. I did suggest she might help clean up a bit….

More later. Be nice to each other. xx

There’s a lot going on at the moment that makes blogging tricky.

Most of it is simply more of what was there before.

Ashley is set to have a new implant to block his early onset puberty.

Cerys is due for an ECG and an MRI to look for reasons for her recent collapses.

Mum is finally conceding that her health means she has to accept help, be it from us, the council or friends. This means we are out and about more picking things up for her or ferrying her around. Its altogether a happier state of affairs.

Gill has become really active in the kitchen as she sheds quite a few pounds with a veg-based diet. We both fast after seven and are seeing great results.

  
 Heather is loving her little weekend job in the toffee stall on the market. Its giving her some financial independence from us as she learns to say “I am buying a …” instead of “can I buy …?”

Unfortunately the health related matters are taking their toll on Gill and me as we work together to timetable things. We’re both exhausted and longing for a good nights sleep. Gill has a bad cough and Ashley has been restless of late.

oo, almost forgot, Ashleys bathroom project is finished. The lads spent a week in there and we think they’ve done a decent job of turning it into a wetroom.

There is a little work to do. We’re putting little shelfy storage things in and repainting the walls. 

Tile stickers will brighten it up for him too.

Oh we survived the floods you might have read about. Terrible damage near the river with a pub being washed away not far from here and the debris wrecking bridges downstream. Still, you build on a flood plain …… 

Trust you’re well.

I’ve always been a news hound.

As a kid I was stuck to the TV at six o’clock, shushing my brothers. Most of it went over my head, but the sight of foreign places behind well dressed reporters entranced me. Kings and ministers sitting on plush chairs posing for handshake photos before shooing the photographers out was, for me, all for more intriguing because I had no clue what it all meant.

The internet gives me constant access to breaking stories and now as a quasi-sapient adult, undestanding the stories draws me in further.

I should add here that I am developing a healthy cynisism when listening to anything concerning large corporations and governments.

However, more and more I am dismayed by some news stories.

For example, this week a body was found in a local canal. 

About a mile away a dog walker found a man in his late forties floating.

As of today he is still unidentified which saddens me.

No one noticed him missing. So detached was he from the family he must have once had, so devoid of friends, that no-one has come forward to say “my mate hasn’t answered his door for a few days” or “my brother has just gone”.

Some of this is down to how we migrate. More and more folk move away from their home town and for transitory relationships. They can disappear and start again. Or just disappear.

It may also be to the increase in what I see as “keyboard warriors”: individuals who spend a disproportionate time using the internet for social contact and for ego-boosting salvos on forums. 

There is a worrying trend of people immersing themselves in social media to the detriment of contact with the real world. Authorities in Antwerp, Utah and Chongqing have all painted “texting lanes” to accommodate the new breed of head down, thumb clicking dead heads who detach themselves from reality, favouring virtual worlds over the here and now.

There was a lovely video doing the rounds a while back that showed a man looking for an addresss bumping into a girl who becomes his sweetheart, wife and companion over a long fulfilling life. It contrasts this to him playing with his phone and walking past her.

I think the problem lies not with the technology we use but in the choices we make.

Time spent following a news story is not a bad thing if it ends and is replaced with hearing Cerys read, or Jo go on about her mates, or joining Ashley to bounce up and down to some Bhangra. Fiddling about with Minecraft is okay but it stops when Gill and I have to coordinate hospital visits (three in the last 7 days) or just to chat with Heather.

Social media and the internet are a part of our lives, just as TV, hobbies, friends and family are. We make choices on how we interact with our world, both the real and virtual bits.

As the video says, Look Up.

(and yeah, smarty pants, I do get the irony of finding a video like this on the internet)

There’ve been a few stories recently about Gender Neutrality in the media.

I was a child of the Sixties but Dad’s attitude was Victorian. Even with his disability, Mum was always accountable, had her role to play around the house and never looked beyond the end of her nose when it came to holding or expressing an opinion.

Gender is a political tool. For decades it has been used to beat unwitting male heads as we foolishly make assumptions about the ladies in our lives.

I should say, as I wade ever more deeply into this quagmire I’m making, that I truly believe in equality. My girls are brought up to see all possibilities. Both the older two have chosen to be fashionable girls but both have a harder edge that will see them handle what life brings on their own terms. 

I do feel that many people use their gender to either get on in life without effort (men) or to allow it to stymy their careers (women). I have known many men in positions well beyond their abilities and as many very able women who blame their gender on career stagnation. 

Gender was a useful tool. As mammals it gave us a blend of genes and a warm protective vessel for early development. Saxon wills were divided into the Spear Half and the Spindle Half showing the accepted role of the genders based, one would guess, on men’s physical strength. The Victorians then created their own nonsense which has dragged itself even into this century as an outdated, and entirely inappropriate picture of gender roles.

Truth be told, we are different. An honest person will admit that though we are all human, men and women have differing attributes. However, the polar separation between the two is now seen as a sliding scale. I choose to sit closer to the manly man end of the spectrum. I don’t spit on the floor, drink pints of vodka and squeeze the backside of any passing wench but I do dress, talk, act and react much as I think a man should.

Modern society is beginning to accept that some folk who happen to have their genitals inside or outside their bodies do not necessarily align themselves with their born gender. Also, we can have “girlie” men and “manly” women who don’t want a sex change. They just present differently.

At work it isn’t an issue. Our seniors are equally represented and the quality of the job you do is seen as a defining factor.

Ashley’s Orthotics department has a transgender secretary who invites him into her office to see the computer before his appointment. He’s happy because she’s friendly and caring. It doesn’t bother him that she still looks like a bloke in a frock so why should it bother us?

So are we ready for a gender neutral society? Probably not. But like most changes, it will come. Freedom of choice will include the assignment of your gender and will be something we respect rather than mock. 

Just as disability isn’t a mask or a defining factor, gender should be seen as a random facet of who we are.

Gill, my lovely lady and I went through our twentieth year together the other day (since our first date) and reflected a little on our time together.

It’s at odds with many partnerships and marriages you see and hear about today where convenience and short term thrills are chosen rather than the dedication and sheer bloody hard work it requires to stay with someone: someone who, like you, matures and changes over the years. 

Celebrities and now common folk seem to accept that a quick exit and fresh start are the norm. 

I do understand that some combinations are so uncomfortable that staying together is out of the question. Separation and divorce are an option especially when infidelity and cruelty are involved. But, to me, many folk are foolish in their initial choice of partner or just too lazy to hold on to what they should.

So, we’re still together after 5 houses. four kids, countless hospital visits, bereavements and more than a few stand up arguments.

The last few months have been spent on a change of lifestyle. Heather, our eldest has joined a gym and she and Gill are now attending a slimming class. Both have been successful with Gill losing over twenty pounds and Heather half as much. Jodie is attending counselling and has started trampolining as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. I have lost over a stone in weight and can really feel the difference. The stabbing back pains I had suffered have gone as has the night time reflux/indigestion.

As part if this change I’m doing walks of 3 or 4 miles a few times a week. As a young man I walked everywhere and fell out of the habit and I’m now really enjoying getting out in all weathers. I use Str.ava to log the walks and Heather and I both have fit.bits. The latter, for the unitiated, are modern pedometers which link to an app which not only helps keep track of exercise, calories burned and sleep but also has a social aspect. You can compete against friends and cheer them on too.

This is a screen shot from my Str.ava

  
I know I can do it without the apps but the social aspect and all those lovely statistics do make it more fun.

Our diet is different with no takeaways, late night snacks (nothing after 7) and tons of veg and fruit.

The only clouds on the horizon are the perrenials: Ashleys long term health, Cerys’s health, Mum’s possible dementia.. the usual stuff.

Our 20th wedding anniversary is at the end of next year and we plan to get away without the kids – no, that didn’t go down well.

So raise your virtual glasses and toast with me:

Here’s to the roses and lilies in bloom,

You in my arms and I in your room.

A door that is locked, a key that is lost,

A bird, and a bottle, and a bed badly tossed,

and a night that is fifty years long.