It’s now thirteen weeks since I moved to Epsom in Surrey. Without my lovely guide dog Esme and back on my feet after plantar fasciitis which believe it or not has still not gone though is much better, I have had to begin learning a new area with a cane as well as learning my way round my new home and remembering where everything is within it.
Because of staff efficiency which far exceeds that of the staff in my last appalling place where I used to live (I now live in supported housing run by Action for Blind People) it wasn’t long before mobility training began. Within three weeks of my arrival in Epsom, I was able to go unaided to Waitrose in order to get my shopping. However it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Though the route is short and relatively uncomplicated, to learn it as someone without sight is hell especially with a cane, having had a dog for almost eight years. Every time the cane hit something I was startled out of my wits and jumped. Also learning has to be done in a completely different way and I hope that the route to Waitrose may be posted on the site, with this article, to show how it’s done. If the road name where I live is blocked out then this may be possible. I’ll leave it to the powers that be to decide.
A route has to be practised and gone through many times before it can be walked without mistakes. The number of times depends on the individual’s ability to learn and willingness to write things down and practise when not with the instructor and the instructor will not sanction doing it alone until (in this case she) is confident it can be done in safety.
Before going, I felt sick and very apprehensive. This, though, is something not to be given into as to do so would result in becoming or remaining housebound.
Before getting another dog it is necessary to learn the area so the dog, which is a pilot, has to be told the way you want to go. If I pass the training again the dog won’t come complete with full knowledge of Epsom and if I want to go to the shopping centre or the bank, the dog won’t know which way I want it to go once I cross the road unless I can direct her.
Now, thirteen weeks on, I am able to get to the post office; Marks and Spencer; bank; HMV store (they don’t call me music lover June for nothing) and Thornton’s; though I’ve resisted the temptation to go in for chocolates.
My mobility instructor refers to me as her star pupil and actually I feel quite proud of myself because for ten months before my move I was housebound because of my feet and the hilly area in which I lived and because I lost my beloved Esme last August. As said before, I “dogged” before coming to Epsom and hadn’t used a cane for eight years and so felt that I was without eyes again once I started to out of necessity.
The local people of Epsom are fabulous. It’s much better than living in London and where I live is lovely too. I’m the nearest I’ve been to amenities and the happiest I’ve been for years.
On Sunday just gone, the wonderful lady who boarded my lovely Esme, brought with her an adorable Labrador Retriever which she is boarding at present and we all went to my local park. Unlike Esme, he stood still long enough for a really long cuddle and scratch behind the ears. Esme would start dancing round and round in circles, wagging and biting her tail and finally bringing her disgusting old toy with her to shove into my face whenever I tried cuddling her. We had a lovely day and I once more had dog hair on my clothes but who cares?
Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, I’ll have another dog all of my own who will fill the gap in my heart and home, which Esme has left – Another trusted pair of eyes to walk silently at my side and through my altered world and if I do, my “tail” of life in Epsom will end happily and I can put my cane away for another eight years. Whatever the future holds, I know I can go out in safety once more and that’s thanks to the “square” of success I talk of on my blog – Ability, determination, luck and help – All of which must be present for achievement to be realised whether one is blind or sighted.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
MY LORD! WHAT A MORNING!
Don’t you just love it when things don’t go to plan! Yes, when someone turns up with an invitation to the ball when you thought you’d be spending the evening with a box of forbidden chocs and some rubbish on the TV because that’s better than sitting in the silence of an empty room – No when your whole morning has been rearranged for you by an oik who should be washing up in some café somewhere and pretending he’s on the radio by chatting into a baked bean tin (clean of course) and making out it’s a microphone!
I was due to do a radio interview, via the phone, for a local station which was probably named after some bimbo nobody’s heard of and I could feel in my bones, the distinct ache of foreboding when they asked to reschedule it. The interview was designed to encourage people to leave legacies to charities through a scheme called Remember a Charity and of course my chosen charity would be Guide Dogs every time!
Having rescheduled my interview, the guy’s watch had obviously stopped – Either that or he was learning what happens when the big hand is on three and the little one is on nine or am I out of date now? Oh yes it’s all digital now isn’t it? I forgot I’m an old curmudgeon who is a fossilised version of twenty-first century woman! Anyway when he did phone he was all smiles, no apology and, just like a first date who thinks the woman is lucky to be taken for a pint of pop and a packet of peanuts, he was most miffed when I expressed my annoyance and ended up hanging up on me. Mind you I dented his ego by calling him arrogant and had the temerity to voice my crossness when an apology was not forthcoming. After much phoning and rearrangement, smoothing of ruffled feathers and waiting to see what would happen next, like a true pro I had the interview in the can within five minutes and, no, I don’t mean the cordless phone landed in the baked bean tin which I use as a microphone because I have dreams of radio stardom when all I’m really fit for is washing up in my Auntie Ethel’s kitchen!
I reminded people how important it is to leave money to charities of their choice and explained how my three guide dogs revolutionised my life; how Guide Dogs gets no state aid; how future money is already “spent” on replacement dogs which cost forty thousand pounds to see through each dog’s lifetime, at todays prices. With almost five thousand dogs in the U.K I’ll leave you to do the maths. Also, the one bit I forgot to say is that someone potentially could go through four or five dogs in a lifetime so each person may well have replacements because the working life of a dog is about eight years on average.
In the afternoon I went on mobility with Val who is teaching me my area. Before I can even think of another dog, I have to learn it with a long cane and boy do I know the difference! It’s like eating in a transport café when once I ate in a five star hotel. It’s the difference between listening to a professionally run, nice big radio station, whose reception is great and whose employees treat contributors with respect and courtesy instead of some cheapjack outfit where the recently promoted teaboy thinks he’s managing director of somewhere as big as the BBC.
Although I was very annoyed at being messed about and although I’m a “nobody” in stardom or celebrity terms, I have enough chutspah to realise that but for the contributors on these programmes, these “teaboys” wouldn’t have jobs! Such is my commitment to Guide Dogs and so high is my opinion of them and my awareness that, but for people like you who generously give of your money and time as well as those who train us and our dogs, I would be housebound or crawling around at a snail’s pace with a lump of metal and rubber in my hand. I’m truly not interested in my profile being raised. What I want is for future generations of blind people to benefit from these magnificent animals as I have done.
When I got home after mobility with Val, I turned on my digital radio and tuned it in to Radio4. Now there’s real class! Rather like having a guide dog really isn’t it?
I was due to do a radio interview, via the phone, for a local station which was probably named after some bimbo nobody’s heard of and I could feel in my bones, the distinct ache of foreboding when they asked to reschedule it. The interview was designed to encourage people to leave legacies to charities through a scheme called Remember a Charity and of course my chosen charity would be Guide Dogs every time!
Having rescheduled my interview, the guy’s watch had obviously stopped – Either that or he was learning what happens when the big hand is on three and the little one is on nine or am I out of date now? Oh yes it’s all digital now isn’t it? I forgot I’m an old curmudgeon who is a fossilised version of twenty-first century woman! Anyway when he did phone he was all smiles, no apology and, just like a first date who thinks the woman is lucky to be taken for a pint of pop and a packet of peanuts, he was most miffed when I expressed my annoyance and ended up hanging up on me. Mind you I dented his ego by calling him arrogant and had the temerity to voice my crossness when an apology was not forthcoming. After much phoning and rearrangement, smoothing of ruffled feathers and waiting to see what would happen next, like a true pro I had the interview in the can within five minutes and, no, I don’t mean the cordless phone landed in the baked bean tin which I use as a microphone because I have dreams of radio stardom when all I’m really fit for is washing up in my Auntie Ethel’s kitchen!
I reminded people how important it is to leave money to charities of their choice and explained how my three guide dogs revolutionised my life; how Guide Dogs gets no state aid; how future money is already “spent” on replacement dogs which cost forty thousand pounds to see through each dog’s lifetime, at todays prices. With almost five thousand dogs in the U.K I’ll leave you to do the maths. Also, the one bit I forgot to say is that someone potentially could go through four or five dogs in a lifetime so each person may well have replacements because the working life of a dog is about eight years on average.
In the afternoon I went on mobility with Val who is teaching me my area. Before I can even think of another dog, I have to learn it with a long cane and boy do I know the difference! It’s like eating in a transport café when once I ate in a five star hotel. It’s the difference between listening to a professionally run, nice big radio station, whose reception is great and whose employees treat contributors with respect and courtesy instead of some cheapjack outfit where the recently promoted teaboy thinks he’s managing director of somewhere as big as the BBC.
Although I was very annoyed at being messed about and although I’m a “nobody” in stardom or celebrity terms, I have enough chutspah to realise that but for the contributors on these programmes, these “teaboys” wouldn’t have jobs! Such is my commitment to Guide Dogs and so high is my opinion of them and my awareness that, but for people like you who generously give of your money and time as well as those who train us and our dogs, I would be housebound or crawling around at a snail’s pace with a lump of metal and rubber in my hand. I’m truly not interested in my profile being raised. What I want is for future generations of blind people to benefit from these magnificent animals as I have done.
When I got home after mobility with Val, I turned on my digital radio and tuned it in to Radio4. Now there’s real class! Rather like having a guide dog really isn’t it?
Friday, July 24, 2009
CHARITY BEGAN AT HOME.
Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what it would be like to open them and find you are blind. For me, this is a familiar reality and has been for all but three months of my life and those are the three I can’t remember because I was a baby when I lost my sight. Imagine how you would cope if you had to move home as I have done recently. How would you know where the shops were? How would you know what local amenities were around you if you couldn’t get out of the house or what equipment you could access to help you live within it?
I recently moved to Surrey, from London in order that I could be near shops, be in a less hilly area and have a better support network which would more effectively meet my needs. Part of that support network includes service provision from SAVI (The Surrey Association for Visually Impaired people). From there it’s possible to obtain aids to daily living such as talking clocks and for those who need them, radios on loan but to me the most valuable and essential service is the mobility training provided by Val who teaches people like me to learn the area with a long cane as either the aid they will continue to use or as a forerunner to acquiring a guide dog because the person needs to know the area before a dog can learn it.
SAVI is a charity which does work whose value is incalculable. Without Val I couldn’t get my shopping unaided and would have to rely on sighted people’s help which would mean going out when they could take me and for some that option may not even exist.
Val is one of a small group of instructors and she has many service users throughout the county - this is why I can only have one lesson per week. A route has to be done many times because my knowledge of my surroundings is fragmentary and nothing is understood as a complete whole. Skill and patience are required by the instructor who learns to think “blind” by going under blindfold when they train to do this work because that is the only way they can even begin to understand how learning in the way I have to is done.
Over the coming months I hope to increase my knowledge of my surroundings, with further help from Val – Help I couldn’t get if she wasn’t there and help she couldn’t give if SAVI wasn’t there and without that help I would have no hope of the independence you have when you open your eyes first thing in the morning right up until you close them again at night.
For this reason I intend to use my time to give back to SAVI and hope you will help me support them too. Who knows? You may see me in Epsom where I now live, either with a cane or guide dog number four who I hope will one day replace my last one, Esme, who retired in January. I shall always remember the day when charity began at home and thanks to you, Val and SAVI’s supporters and volunteers, I won’t have to stay isolated in mine.
I recently moved to Surrey, from London in order that I could be near shops, be in a less hilly area and have a better support network which would more effectively meet my needs. Part of that support network includes service provision from SAVI (The Surrey Association for Visually Impaired people). From there it’s possible to obtain aids to daily living such as talking clocks and for those who need them, radios on loan but to me the most valuable and essential service is the mobility training provided by Val who teaches people like me to learn the area with a long cane as either the aid they will continue to use or as a forerunner to acquiring a guide dog because the person needs to know the area before a dog can learn it.
SAVI is a charity which does work whose value is incalculable. Without Val I couldn’t get my shopping unaided and would have to rely on sighted people’s help which would mean going out when they could take me and for some that option may not even exist.
Val is one of a small group of instructors and she has many service users throughout the county - this is why I can only have one lesson per week. A route has to be done many times because my knowledge of my surroundings is fragmentary and nothing is understood as a complete whole. Skill and patience are required by the instructor who learns to think “blind” by going under blindfold when they train to do this work because that is the only way they can even begin to understand how learning in the way I have to is done.
Over the coming months I hope to increase my knowledge of my surroundings, with further help from Val – Help I couldn’t get if she wasn’t there and help she couldn’t give if SAVI wasn’t there and without that help I would have no hope of the independence you have when you open your eyes first thing in the morning right up until you close them again at night.
For this reason I intend to use my time to give back to SAVI and hope you will help me support them too. Who knows? You may see me in Epsom where I now live, either with a cane or guide dog number four who I hope will one day replace my last one, Esme, who retired in January. I shall always remember the day when charity began at home and thanks to you, Val and SAVI’s supporters and volunteers, I won’t have to stay isolated in mine.
Monday, May 18, 2009
WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES.
Those of you who regularly read my blog entries will realise you’ve had nothing new to read for weeks. There are two good reasons for this, the first of which is simply that I’ve been too fed up to right and the second is that I’ve been busy because the spiritual “sun” which I thought had gone behind a permanent cloud, has peeped out and spread new light on my circumstances which are now about to change.
I am sure you will recall the loss of my dear beloved guide dog, Esme, now happily settled in the New Forest while I have been trapped without her in my home with only a painful back and feet for company. You may also recall that I said I couldn’t have another dog unless I move.
In January, this year, I had a letter from another housing complex for blind people, asking me if I wanted to remain on their waiting list. Having only moved last June I was tempted to say “no” but something told me not to so I said “yes” instead. I was told I was second on their list, having jumped up from fourth. If only they’d been talking about a book in the best seller list, written by me of course! Instead they were talking of their waiting list and my place on it. Each day I waited patiently for the phone to ring with the news that I longed for – That I had got a place there.
Just before Easter I was told they had a vacancy and offered the opportunity of staying for a week in their guest flat to see how I liked it and help the staff and me make a decision as to whether it’d be the best place for me. I went. We all got on well. I loved it and am moving tomorrow. In the weeks between January and now, my present environment has gone from bad to worse – Children running around an unattended complex at night, no meals provided for those who need them, and people clamouring to leave in droves, not least of whom was a lovely and efficient receptionist who couldn’t take working here any longer. This must be the only place with a waiting list to get out!
Without caring relatives I wondered how I was going to manage this move and what I would do regards the practical problems of clearing stuff out and packing. My lovely German lady who boarded Esme has said she will come and take me down to my new home and help me all day; other sighted people have lent their hands and helped with writing letters to folks I can’t email and helped with the acquisition of the post office form needed for the redirection of mail. Esme’s former boarder and my fairy godmother, even gave me the details of a removal firm which is reliable and that really was a load off my mind.
I managed most things like arranging for the stopping of my standing order at the bank and to have my BT account transferred but my back problem has made clearing stuff out very difficult though I’ve even managed that also to a very large extent. What I have been stunned by is the unexpected kindness of those I hadn’t thought would come, including a lady who I met when she talked to me on the street about God and tried to involve me in her religious group. Most outstanding of all though is the goodness of U, the lady who looked after Esme when I was first ill and whom I shall meet for the first time tomorrow.
I have mixed emotions today. I’m glad to leave the worst run place for blind people that I have ever had the misfortune to enter, sad to leave those who unfortunately can’t come with me, especially some of the old and frail people who are being sold short when they need help most and who are having their anxieties heightened instead of relieved and I shed tears when I said my farewells to S, my kind and trusted home help. She has also been a great help to me in these last weeks leading up to this move. She will come and see me I know.
Tomorrow I will be off to a bigger flat in a better area with more facilities and nearer shops and dedicated, kind staff some of whom hugged me when I came home last month, saying: “See you in a month’s time”. While there I went out for three meals with tenants, some of whom have offered me their help when I get there tomorrow. It will be strange at first, for I don’t know the area, only know my way round part of the building and everything will be in different places in a completely new flat. However, I’m also relieved as well as dog tired and excited to be making a new start. Maybe there will be another wagging tail at the end of another dog who will come bounding into my life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring apart from the furniture van and my fairy godmother? I can only offer up a silent prayer of thanks for my deliverance from this dismal dump and hope that the needless sorrow to which my poor friends here have been exposed, due to crass and stupid mismanagement and a profit before people ethos will soon end for them too.
I’m not stupid enough to believe my problems will all be left here and will not be found at my new home but the difference is that there will be joys too which is more than can be said for life here. Those whose responsibility it is to run this place should hang their heads in shame for they do not even deliver their services with kindness or care. When the door to this chapter of my life closes tomorrow, I can only hope that the opening door will indeed be on a brighter and happier day – Something I thought would never happen, especially when the Guide Dogs employee took away my lovely Esme last August. She, together with my friends, some dead and some living, was all that kept me going through the sixteen years of needless misery and worsening services which I’ve had to endure here and which are now, thankfully, coming to an end. Maybe that annoying cliché really is true (my Nan said it often enough to my great irritation because I don’t like clichés and platitudes). “When one door closes another one opens”.
I am sure you will recall the loss of my dear beloved guide dog, Esme, now happily settled in the New Forest while I have been trapped without her in my home with only a painful back and feet for company. You may also recall that I said I couldn’t have another dog unless I move.
In January, this year, I had a letter from another housing complex for blind people, asking me if I wanted to remain on their waiting list. Having only moved last June I was tempted to say “no” but something told me not to so I said “yes” instead. I was told I was second on their list, having jumped up from fourth. If only they’d been talking about a book in the best seller list, written by me of course! Instead they were talking of their waiting list and my place on it. Each day I waited patiently for the phone to ring with the news that I longed for – That I had got a place there.
Just before Easter I was told they had a vacancy and offered the opportunity of staying for a week in their guest flat to see how I liked it and help the staff and me make a decision as to whether it’d be the best place for me. I went. We all got on well. I loved it and am moving tomorrow. In the weeks between January and now, my present environment has gone from bad to worse – Children running around an unattended complex at night, no meals provided for those who need them, and people clamouring to leave in droves, not least of whom was a lovely and efficient receptionist who couldn’t take working here any longer. This must be the only place with a waiting list to get out!
Without caring relatives I wondered how I was going to manage this move and what I would do regards the practical problems of clearing stuff out and packing. My lovely German lady who boarded Esme has said she will come and take me down to my new home and help me all day; other sighted people have lent their hands and helped with writing letters to folks I can’t email and helped with the acquisition of the post office form needed for the redirection of mail. Esme’s former boarder and my fairy godmother, even gave me the details of a removal firm which is reliable and that really was a load off my mind.
I managed most things like arranging for the stopping of my standing order at the bank and to have my BT account transferred but my back problem has made clearing stuff out very difficult though I’ve even managed that also to a very large extent. What I have been stunned by is the unexpected kindness of those I hadn’t thought would come, including a lady who I met when she talked to me on the street about God and tried to involve me in her religious group. Most outstanding of all though is the goodness of U, the lady who looked after Esme when I was first ill and whom I shall meet for the first time tomorrow.
I have mixed emotions today. I’m glad to leave the worst run place for blind people that I have ever had the misfortune to enter, sad to leave those who unfortunately can’t come with me, especially some of the old and frail people who are being sold short when they need help most and who are having their anxieties heightened instead of relieved and I shed tears when I said my farewells to S, my kind and trusted home help. She has also been a great help to me in these last weeks leading up to this move. She will come and see me I know.
Tomorrow I will be off to a bigger flat in a better area with more facilities and nearer shops and dedicated, kind staff some of whom hugged me when I came home last month, saying: “See you in a month’s time”. While there I went out for three meals with tenants, some of whom have offered me their help when I get there tomorrow. It will be strange at first, for I don’t know the area, only know my way round part of the building and everything will be in different places in a completely new flat. However, I’m also relieved as well as dog tired and excited to be making a new start. Maybe there will be another wagging tail at the end of another dog who will come bounding into my life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring apart from the furniture van and my fairy godmother? I can only offer up a silent prayer of thanks for my deliverance from this dismal dump and hope that the needless sorrow to which my poor friends here have been exposed, due to crass and stupid mismanagement and a profit before people ethos will soon end for them too.
I’m not stupid enough to believe my problems will all be left here and will not be found at my new home but the difference is that there will be joys too which is more than can be said for life here. Those whose responsibility it is to run this place should hang their heads in shame for they do not even deliver their services with kindness or care. When the door to this chapter of my life closes tomorrow, I can only hope that the opening door will indeed be on a brighter and happier day – Something I thought would never happen, especially when the Guide Dogs employee took away my lovely Esme last August. She, together with my friends, some dead and some living, was all that kept me going through the sixteen years of needless misery and worsening services which I’ve had to endure here and which are now, thankfully, coming to an end. Maybe that annoying cliché really is true (my Nan said it often enough to my great irritation because I don’t like clichés and platitudes). “When one door closes another one opens”.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
ALMOST HUMAN – A TRIBUTE TO ESME.
If you who are reading this have a dog, whether a soppy little mongrel or a great lumbering creature on legs, doubtless it will mean the world to you and when the time comes to part or the dog dies then surely you will feel as I do, namely that your whole world has collapsed or even disappeared before your very eyes. How much more is this true when that dog has been your eyes for approximately eight years.
I first met Esme at the Guide Dogs Training Centre in Wokingham where the food was like that served in a top class hotel and the compassion and kindness of the staff matched it in equal measure. However, food enthusiast that I am though much of it is forbidden these days for health reasons, my main longing wasn’t for a decent meal but for my first meeting with my dog. From the moment she bounded into the room I knew that I loved her. How much I would come to love her more even I couldn’t begin to imagine.
Because of a back problem which has now forced me to retire her a little earlier than would otherwise have been so, the Association matched me with a slow walking though very conscientious dog who was rightly described by Julie Tranfield, our instructor, as “generous”. For eight years nearly we walked the streets of my local area and Esme rarely made a mistake. At home though, it was a different matter entirely in that she turned from the conscientious guide into an exuberant and lively dog who needed some effort on my part when drying her after the rain had soaked her coat. She would back me into a corner, stand on the towel I was trying to use after shaking herself inside the flat of course and finally pin me to the bath as she rolled onto her back with all four paws in the air. My friends described her as a real character – One or two commenting that they have never seen a dog like her.
Esme’s strangest but most welcome characteristic was her love of the vet’s surgery. Most dogs have to be dragged kicking and barking to the vet but not Esme. She would stand on the crossing, quivering and whining and almost run me over the road in order to get inside for the liver treats she was given there. In fact I had to get the receptionist to help me back over the crossing because if I didn’t, Esme would walk round in ever decreasing circles, finally ending up at the door again with tail wagging on the frame in the vain hope of another few treats. When her plans were thwarted she would walk sulkily home at a snail’s pace with the tail down.
Hearing the “windows” tune on the computer was a source of joy to her as she realised I was logging off in order to feed or take her for a walk. Amazingly she was not afraid of fireworks or loud bangs and thunder.
The dark cloud on my dog owning horizon began to form last August, just after I’d completed the “Race for Life” walk with two other visually impaired people and two sighted guides, in July. Already my feet were painful so maybe it was stupid to do the walk which didn’t cause the problem but may have aggravated it. Diagnosed with plantar fasciitis which makes the heels intensely painful, I had to have physiotherapy but worse than that, had to have Esme boarded out by Guide Dogs who found her several suitable boarders including a lovely German lady with whom I’m now in touch and who sent me photos of Esme via the computer which to my utter chagrin I cannot see but still have so others can see how lovely she is. Always in my mind was the kernel of hope that I may be reunited with her once the physio was over. However, just before Christmas just past, I developed numbness and pins and needles in my right leg, which shows no signs of going and have been told it is due to a back problem I’ve had since I was born ten weeks premature which is why I’m blind in the first place as I needed so much oxygen to help me breathe that the high levels damaged my eyes.
This week (Tuesday, 27th January in fact) a Guide Dog Mobility Instructor visited me and we sadly came to the decision to retire the best friend any blind person can ever have and in some cases is ever likely to have. Since Esme is now ten and hasn’t worked for months it seemed silly to bring her back to work and very wrong too since I can’t go very far at present as this area is so hilly. The worst aspect is that though I’d planned to have her back in order to see how I’d cope with a new dog, because these wretched pins and needles have started it has been mutually agreed that while I live in this area which anyway has few amenities now, my guide dog owning days are at an end though if I can move then perhaps I can own one again in the future but knowing my luck I’m not holding my breath.
What I can say is that throughout Esme’s time with me I had a friend who was almost human, a magnificent pair of eyes and a unique character quite different from those of the dogs I had before who were in their turn distinct and special. At first I was relieved not to have to take care of her because of my health problems but now that I know that my supposed temporary parting is permanent and that the prospect of more guide dogs is uncertain I’m devastated.
The kindness and compassion of the staff at Guide Dogs who have praised me for the high standard of care I gave to Esme plus our equally praiseworthy standard of work as a team,is greatly appreciated and shows me just how worthwhile a cause Guide Dogs is and it is to be hoped they don’t suffer in these times of recession especially as the charity gets no state aid.
Finally, I know I shall always have my memories of her but you can’t be guided in the street by a memory and neither does a memory wag its tail when you’ve just popped out to throw the rubbish down the chute and welcome you as if you’ve returned from Australia. Painful though the decision was to make, I know I did the only thing I could do – Release Esme from her duties so she could have the retirement she deserves. No it wasn’t a life of drudgery and slavery for her but a mutually beneficial life for both of us as she conscientiously worked for me, even slowing down when she knew my back was bad – While I, in my turn, loved and cared for her to the enth degree as she deserved. She was, as I say, almost human and an ever faithful pair of “eyes” which I have lost all over again. My only consolation is that I’ve heard she has adapted to being without me since dogs live in the present and will no doubt go to a loving home but what I can say with absolute certainty is that nobody, however loving and kind they will be to her, can ever love her more than I did and still do for she, like my other dogs, brought me to the brink of an understanding which just about still eludes me, as to the miracle of sight itself because walking with a dog is the ultimate in blind people’s mobility and beats using a cane into a cocked hat. Only thing is though, I never shed a bucketful of tears when I parted from any white cane but grief is the price you pay for love and anyone who meets or met Esme, never mind owned her as I did, could do anything other than love her.
I first met Esme at the Guide Dogs Training Centre in Wokingham where the food was like that served in a top class hotel and the compassion and kindness of the staff matched it in equal measure. However, food enthusiast that I am though much of it is forbidden these days for health reasons, my main longing wasn’t for a decent meal but for my first meeting with my dog. From the moment she bounded into the room I knew that I loved her. How much I would come to love her more even I couldn’t begin to imagine.
Because of a back problem which has now forced me to retire her a little earlier than would otherwise have been so, the Association matched me with a slow walking though very conscientious dog who was rightly described by Julie Tranfield, our instructor, as “generous”. For eight years nearly we walked the streets of my local area and Esme rarely made a mistake. At home though, it was a different matter entirely in that she turned from the conscientious guide into an exuberant and lively dog who needed some effort on my part when drying her after the rain had soaked her coat. She would back me into a corner, stand on the towel I was trying to use after shaking herself inside the flat of course and finally pin me to the bath as she rolled onto her back with all four paws in the air. My friends described her as a real character – One or two commenting that they have never seen a dog like her.
Esme’s strangest but most welcome characteristic was her love of the vet’s surgery. Most dogs have to be dragged kicking and barking to the vet but not Esme. She would stand on the crossing, quivering and whining and almost run me over the road in order to get inside for the liver treats she was given there. In fact I had to get the receptionist to help me back over the crossing because if I didn’t, Esme would walk round in ever decreasing circles, finally ending up at the door again with tail wagging on the frame in the vain hope of another few treats. When her plans were thwarted she would walk sulkily home at a snail’s pace with the tail down.
Hearing the “windows” tune on the computer was a source of joy to her as she realised I was logging off in order to feed or take her for a walk. Amazingly she was not afraid of fireworks or loud bangs and thunder.
The dark cloud on my dog owning horizon began to form last August, just after I’d completed the “Race for Life” walk with two other visually impaired people and two sighted guides, in July. Already my feet were painful so maybe it was stupid to do the walk which didn’t cause the problem but may have aggravated it. Diagnosed with plantar fasciitis which makes the heels intensely painful, I had to have physiotherapy but worse than that, had to have Esme boarded out by Guide Dogs who found her several suitable boarders including a lovely German lady with whom I’m now in touch and who sent me photos of Esme via the computer which to my utter chagrin I cannot see but still have so others can see how lovely she is. Always in my mind was the kernel of hope that I may be reunited with her once the physio was over. However, just before Christmas just past, I developed numbness and pins and needles in my right leg, which shows no signs of going and have been told it is due to a back problem I’ve had since I was born ten weeks premature which is why I’m blind in the first place as I needed so much oxygen to help me breathe that the high levels damaged my eyes.
This week (Tuesday, 27th January in fact) a Guide Dog Mobility Instructor visited me and we sadly came to the decision to retire the best friend any blind person can ever have and in some cases is ever likely to have. Since Esme is now ten and hasn’t worked for months it seemed silly to bring her back to work and very wrong too since I can’t go very far at present as this area is so hilly. The worst aspect is that though I’d planned to have her back in order to see how I’d cope with a new dog, because these wretched pins and needles have started it has been mutually agreed that while I live in this area which anyway has few amenities now, my guide dog owning days are at an end though if I can move then perhaps I can own one again in the future but knowing my luck I’m not holding my breath.
What I can say is that throughout Esme’s time with me I had a friend who was almost human, a magnificent pair of eyes and a unique character quite different from those of the dogs I had before who were in their turn distinct and special. At first I was relieved not to have to take care of her because of my health problems but now that I know that my supposed temporary parting is permanent and that the prospect of more guide dogs is uncertain I’m devastated.
The kindness and compassion of the staff at Guide Dogs who have praised me for the high standard of care I gave to Esme plus our equally praiseworthy standard of work as a team,is greatly appreciated and shows me just how worthwhile a cause Guide Dogs is and it is to be hoped they don’t suffer in these times of recession especially as the charity gets no state aid.
Finally, I know I shall always have my memories of her but you can’t be guided in the street by a memory and neither does a memory wag its tail when you’ve just popped out to throw the rubbish down the chute and welcome you as if you’ve returned from Australia. Painful though the decision was to make, I know I did the only thing I could do – Release Esme from her duties so she could have the retirement she deserves. No it wasn’t a life of drudgery and slavery for her but a mutually beneficial life for both of us as she conscientiously worked for me, even slowing down when she knew my back was bad – While I, in my turn, loved and cared for her to the enth degree as she deserved. She was, as I say, almost human and an ever faithful pair of “eyes” which I have lost all over again. My only consolation is that I’ve heard she has adapted to being without me since dogs live in the present and will no doubt go to a loving home but what I can say with absolute certainty is that nobody, however loving and kind they will be to her, can ever love her more than I did and still do for she, like my other dogs, brought me to the brink of an understanding which just about still eludes me, as to the miracle of sight itself because walking with a dog is the ultimate in blind people’s mobility and beats using a cane into a cocked hat. Only thing is though, I never shed a bucketful of tears when I parted from any white cane but grief is the price you pay for love and anyone who meets or met Esme, never mind owned her as I did, could do anything other than love her.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
BITTER-SWEET.
I have just this minute finished a book, telling the story of someone else who, like me, has owned a guide dog. I wanted to see whether her experiences were anything like my own but as I read the story, it became clear that our paths were to diverge in a way I could never have suspected.
Much later in the story, the author was seen by an eye specialist who operated on her eyes and returned her lost sight to her as a result. She had a genetic disease which blinded her but, like me, could see light at some time but unlike me; she saw colours too which I have never been able to do as far as I can remember for my sight was lost too early for me to recall them.
As I became aware that her operation was going to be a success, I was aware of mixed emotions. I wanted to know how she reacted to sight and seeing the world, herself and family plus colours and how she would learn to see but I was also aware of a deep sense of sadness that I am never to have this experience. Yes it was as I had imagined in that I have always thought that you can’t just open your eyes and see and know what everything was like. No you wouldn’t be able to get up out of a chair and just go anywhere without feeling apprehension and fear because your brain would have to adjust to your new situation and for a while at least you would have to close your eyes and touch things so you could recognise them that way. You’d have also to learn to write in the usual way with a pen and paper but once done, you would be filled with a sense of wonder at the world and all that is in it which is surely what a young child must feel when confronted with the world’s visual imagery for the first time.
I learned things from this story that I never realised and know now that I was quite correct in assuming that there is a great deal of difference between knowing things factually: “The sky is blue or grey”, “roses are red, violets are blue”; “clouds can be like fluffy bits of cotton wool in the sky” etc. and knowing things experientially. She describes how lettuces catch the light, or perhaps it’s the water they’re being washed in as it runs from the tap, and how it creates pools of reflected light which swirl around. I have never thought of this before.
This author was honest enough to talk about the implications of blindness, what it robs you of, how narrow it can make your life and how disconnected from the world you can be because of it and she was fortunate enough to have married a sighted man whilst blind and have many friends who can see.
In other ways I wish I’d not read this book – Not because I am not pleased for her and not just because of sour grapes and horrible feelings of envy, jealousy, rage and frustration but because it has brought to the forefront of my mind the tantalising nearness of a world I live with in parallel to but cannot enter and, yes, I would be telling lies if I said that I happily read this book and thought: “Oh well, never mind! That’s your story I’m happy as I am and never think how good it would be were things different”.
The only area on which I disagree with her is that about when it is “best” to become blind. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The terrible feelings of helplessness, fear, resentment and longing which often accompany loss of sight later in life are not exclusive to the adventitiously blind. These feelings of knowing what you’ve missed or at least that you have, feeling left out and indeed being so and knowing your life is not going to be the same as it could have been had you not been blind or otherwise disabled for that matter are just as painful in youth and adulthood for those who haven’t seen. It’s like being hit on the back rather than in the stomach. Both hurt and both have to be coped with. Those who’ve lost their sight have a visual memory to take with them and an understanding of a world they are forced to leave – The world of vision – Whereas I have no actual readjusting to do in one way but a cobbled together understanding which makes it hard to choose clothes, find my way by thinking in terms of spatial distances and raised maps and suchlike. I do admit that because I was taught how to cope in the home I don’t “feel blind” at home and can and do cook, know how to identify my tins because I can put Braille labels on them and can do such things as measure cereal out without spilling it everywhere. I neither burn or scald myself and don’t fall downstairs and am not a fire hazard. Older blind people who have seen do tend to do some of these things more often but I am sure that, were I to sleep in the same house with one of them, they would at some time have heard me shedding tears over a horrible journey through a world of nothingness just as I would hear them doing so over things no longer seen by them or possible like their lost ability to paint or read books; see flowers or family.
One thing I do know for sure is that, after I have next slept, I am going to need to employ my happiness strategies all the more rigorously. Just beside me, walking stealthily, is that other “me” which does wonder what the world is really like, why this had to happen in the first place and why something can’t be done to reverse things and, as with monopoly: “get me out of jail”. Sheila, the author, has called this other self from the shadows and it’s a voice I’ve not heard for a long time and a longing I’ve not had for a long time and rarely get now until I hear of someone who has been liberated. It’s going to take all my strength to restrain this other self; to send it back into the shadows because, like her guide dog, mine is ten now as hers was when she wrote the story, and my future is by no means going to be as hers was. However, I don’t know what has happened to her in later life though I have another book here which will no doubt tell me and I don’t know what my future is to be either. I just know that, as it is for the rest of you, it’s got to be a question of one day at a time and playing the hand of cards I’ve been given. However, soon I shall have, for the sake of all these suppressed and now expressed longings, either to escape into fiction – Either reading or writing it and into music in order to divert my thoughts.
What a wonderful reversal of fortune this woman had! At least though, she did, as I hope I would, appreciate it and didn’t, as I don’t, shrug off and play down the enormous impact blindness has on people. The secret now is not to dwell on the difficulties – Easier said than done but I have become an adept at it for it’s something I have to do every day and though I had tears in my eyes when I’d finished this book, I was smiling at the same time. Well then folks, could you call that the facial equivalent of a rainbow?
Much later in the story, the author was seen by an eye specialist who operated on her eyes and returned her lost sight to her as a result. She had a genetic disease which blinded her but, like me, could see light at some time but unlike me; she saw colours too which I have never been able to do as far as I can remember for my sight was lost too early for me to recall them.
As I became aware that her operation was going to be a success, I was aware of mixed emotions. I wanted to know how she reacted to sight and seeing the world, herself and family plus colours and how she would learn to see but I was also aware of a deep sense of sadness that I am never to have this experience. Yes it was as I had imagined in that I have always thought that you can’t just open your eyes and see and know what everything was like. No you wouldn’t be able to get up out of a chair and just go anywhere without feeling apprehension and fear because your brain would have to adjust to your new situation and for a while at least you would have to close your eyes and touch things so you could recognise them that way. You’d have also to learn to write in the usual way with a pen and paper but once done, you would be filled with a sense of wonder at the world and all that is in it which is surely what a young child must feel when confronted with the world’s visual imagery for the first time.
I learned things from this story that I never realised and know now that I was quite correct in assuming that there is a great deal of difference between knowing things factually: “The sky is blue or grey”, “roses are red, violets are blue”; “clouds can be like fluffy bits of cotton wool in the sky” etc. and knowing things experientially. She describes how lettuces catch the light, or perhaps it’s the water they’re being washed in as it runs from the tap, and how it creates pools of reflected light which swirl around. I have never thought of this before.
This author was honest enough to talk about the implications of blindness, what it robs you of, how narrow it can make your life and how disconnected from the world you can be because of it and she was fortunate enough to have married a sighted man whilst blind and have many friends who can see.
In other ways I wish I’d not read this book – Not because I am not pleased for her and not just because of sour grapes and horrible feelings of envy, jealousy, rage and frustration but because it has brought to the forefront of my mind the tantalising nearness of a world I live with in parallel to but cannot enter and, yes, I would be telling lies if I said that I happily read this book and thought: “Oh well, never mind! That’s your story I’m happy as I am and never think how good it would be were things different”.
The only area on which I disagree with her is that about when it is “best” to become blind. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The terrible feelings of helplessness, fear, resentment and longing which often accompany loss of sight later in life are not exclusive to the adventitiously blind. These feelings of knowing what you’ve missed or at least that you have, feeling left out and indeed being so and knowing your life is not going to be the same as it could have been had you not been blind or otherwise disabled for that matter are just as painful in youth and adulthood for those who haven’t seen. It’s like being hit on the back rather than in the stomach. Both hurt and both have to be coped with. Those who’ve lost their sight have a visual memory to take with them and an understanding of a world they are forced to leave – The world of vision – Whereas I have no actual readjusting to do in one way but a cobbled together understanding which makes it hard to choose clothes, find my way by thinking in terms of spatial distances and raised maps and suchlike. I do admit that because I was taught how to cope in the home I don’t “feel blind” at home and can and do cook, know how to identify my tins because I can put Braille labels on them and can do such things as measure cereal out without spilling it everywhere. I neither burn or scald myself and don’t fall downstairs and am not a fire hazard. Older blind people who have seen do tend to do some of these things more often but I am sure that, were I to sleep in the same house with one of them, they would at some time have heard me shedding tears over a horrible journey through a world of nothingness just as I would hear them doing so over things no longer seen by them or possible like their lost ability to paint or read books; see flowers or family.
One thing I do know for sure is that, after I have next slept, I am going to need to employ my happiness strategies all the more rigorously. Just beside me, walking stealthily, is that other “me” which does wonder what the world is really like, why this had to happen in the first place and why something can’t be done to reverse things and, as with monopoly: “get me out of jail”. Sheila, the author, has called this other self from the shadows and it’s a voice I’ve not heard for a long time and a longing I’ve not had for a long time and rarely get now until I hear of someone who has been liberated. It’s going to take all my strength to restrain this other self; to send it back into the shadows because, like her guide dog, mine is ten now as hers was when she wrote the story, and my future is by no means going to be as hers was. However, I don’t know what has happened to her in later life though I have another book here which will no doubt tell me and I don’t know what my future is to be either. I just know that, as it is for the rest of you, it’s got to be a question of one day at a time and playing the hand of cards I’ve been given. However, soon I shall have, for the sake of all these suppressed and now expressed longings, either to escape into fiction – Either reading or writing it and into music in order to divert my thoughts.
What a wonderful reversal of fortune this woman had! At least though, she did, as I hope I would, appreciate it and didn’t, as I don’t, shrug off and play down the enormous impact blindness has on people. The secret now is not to dwell on the difficulties – Easier said than done but I have become an adept at it for it’s something I have to do every day and though I had tears in my eyes when I’d finished this book, I was smiling at the same time. Well then folks, could you call that the facial equivalent of a rainbow?
Saturday, January 3, 2009
IT CAN BE DONE.
Let’s start 2009 on a positive note. I’m going to make what will, to some be an outrageous statement and a contradiction in terms. Christmas and the New Year celebrations can be enjoyed without the inclusion of alcohol! Yes you did read it right.
Some years ago, after the death of my husband, I took to drink in a big way. My intention was simple – Drink enough and I’ll forget the misery of being unexpectedly and unpredictably alone – Drink more than enough and hopefully I’d join him. I kept this up for some considerable time until I realised that not only am I a tough little individual who is resilient and constitutionally quite strong but that the procedure didn’t work! I didn’t forget and haven’t died yet! All I had for my troubles was a headache which felt as if a band had set up their equipment inside my skull and I was the poorer both financially and spiritually and was on the way to doing serious damage to my liver and other organs. I didn’t have a moment of supreme enlightment on the way to the road to my personal Damascus and neither did I “get religion” though I have read the Bible from cover to cover. I just got fed up with the dry mouth, continual thirst and headaches and the fact that I needed more of the stuff to achieve the same very transient effect. Then I found that my epilepsy had worsened to the point where I was hospitalised and needed life-long medication which doesn’t go well with alcohol. So I kicked the habit, with only one or two relapses at Christmas time when the pressure to drink is at its strongest.
I had to sit down and analyse the reasons why I drank and knew only too well that it was to do with my deep and painful unhappiness. It was because I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I was on my own when I didn’t want to be and resented the rejection of me by many sighted people who either don’t get to know me or keep making promises they don’t keep or conduct any sort of relationship on their terms and I wanted a short cut to the oblivion which death brings to us all. At aged thirty-five I had three massive epileptic fits but still refused to die. I wasn’t drunk at the time but instead had just come home from switchboard work at the U.K’s well known charity for those with sight loss. I lost several hours of time and woke up in hospital with a canular in my arm, which dripped anti convulsant medication into my body. I wondered then why I was still here and realised that, though not lucky because of all I have suffered, at least I was still around which is more than could be said for the man I fell in love with and married. I thought too of the terrible distress my very elderly grandmother would suffer had I died or if I destroyed myself by abusing alcohol. Though the epilepsy is definitely the result of the oxygen damage which blinded me, and which began in early adolescence, I can’t deny the fact that what I was doing to myself must have affected its progress just as surely as my having to cope alone without help both of a practical or emotional support.
So conditioned are we to think that every and any celebration must include alcohol that even after I’d made the decision to stop, my Christmas relapses were always due to the fact that I thought I couldn’t enjoy them without it. As it is Christmas is not my favourite time of year so anything which would oil the wheels seemed to me a must. What about the Christmas just gone then?
In June I made my escape from the unspeakably inconsiderate oaf who spoiled my life for seventeen months by playing loud music all night and moved into another flat within the block where I’ve lived for years. With apprehension I heard that a couple was moving in beside me. I dreaded it in case they were a couple of beer swilling louts with an equally loud stereo system and no desire to wear headphones. I worried myself to death for days until I could stand it no longer. Armed with a box of chocolates I did something I’m not noted for – I rang their bell and introduced myself to them. They invited me in, told me they’d suffered in the same way and that they were quiet and private people who also avoided alcohol. We clicked at once and are now not just neighbours but friends and I was so touched when, dreading Christmas as I always do, they invited me round for Christmas dinner. I had the loveliest Christmas possible. The lady of the house is a superb cook and I’ve been teasing them both about constructing a serving hatch in the adjoining wall so that I can push my plate through at meal times. They popped in for New Year’s Eve and throughout both occasions we drank coke or water. When I came home and when they left after each celebration, respectively, I was on such a self-induced high that on went the headphones and up went the music! Then I said to myself, with a shock: “June, you’ve done it all without alcohol but not without friends whose kindness helped you accomplish it”. Both these lovely people keep their eyes on me. If they don’t see me for a little while, I get a ring on the bell to ask if I’m okay. It’s taken me all my adult life to realise that celebrations, especially Christmas and New Year do not have to be lived in an alcoholic haze and life can be happy without it too.
Of course one addiction or need if you like has been replaced with another. I live with music in my ears and as I’ve said before I’ve a strong compulsion to write but at least these are harmless compulsions especially since, in the case of music, I keep it at a sensible volume because I need my ears so much more than I would if I could see. I have been invited to my friends’ and neighbours’ wedding this year and, yes, I expect that too will be an alcohol free affair but the obvious love they feel for each other is all they need and having them as my new neighbours and friends is all I need so folks, if you’re struggling with alcohol consumption and were, like me, conditioned to believe that you can’t manage your celebrations without it, the good news is that you can. Also, if you feel a bit apprehensive about popping round to new neighbours with a box of chocks and introducing yourself, go on, give it a go! You may be unlucky and find you’ve met a real waste of space like I did when the floods in my first flat caused me to live underneath the neighbour from hell but then again you may, as I have, strike oil. Whatever the outcome, if you sit in your own flat or apartment or house, isolated and drinking alone as I did, you’ll never know and you may miss the warmth and kindness of others which will come back to you for that which you gave and that is more beneficial and precious than any number of bottles of alcohol. Here’s to friendship, love and kindness, as I sit here with my cup of tea!
Some years ago, after the death of my husband, I took to drink in a big way. My intention was simple – Drink enough and I’ll forget the misery of being unexpectedly and unpredictably alone – Drink more than enough and hopefully I’d join him. I kept this up for some considerable time until I realised that not only am I a tough little individual who is resilient and constitutionally quite strong but that the procedure didn’t work! I didn’t forget and haven’t died yet! All I had for my troubles was a headache which felt as if a band had set up their equipment inside my skull and I was the poorer both financially and spiritually and was on the way to doing serious damage to my liver and other organs. I didn’t have a moment of supreme enlightment on the way to the road to my personal Damascus and neither did I “get religion” though I have read the Bible from cover to cover. I just got fed up with the dry mouth, continual thirst and headaches and the fact that I needed more of the stuff to achieve the same very transient effect. Then I found that my epilepsy had worsened to the point where I was hospitalised and needed life-long medication which doesn’t go well with alcohol. So I kicked the habit, with only one or two relapses at Christmas time when the pressure to drink is at its strongest.
I had to sit down and analyse the reasons why I drank and knew only too well that it was to do with my deep and painful unhappiness. It was because I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I was on my own when I didn’t want to be and resented the rejection of me by many sighted people who either don’t get to know me or keep making promises they don’t keep or conduct any sort of relationship on their terms and I wanted a short cut to the oblivion which death brings to us all. At aged thirty-five I had three massive epileptic fits but still refused to die. I wasn’t drunk at the time but instead had just come home from switchboard work at the U.K’s well known charity for those with sight loss. I lost several hours of time and woke up in hospital with a canular in my arm, which dripped anti convulsant medication into my body. I wondered then why I was still here and realised that, though not lucky because of all I have suffered, at least I was still around which is more than could be said for the man I fell in love with and married. I thought too of the terrible distress my very elderly grandmother would suffer had I died or if I destroyed myself by abusing alcohol. Though the epilepsy is definitely the result of the oxygen damage which blinded me, and which began in early adolescence, I can’t deny the fact that what I was doing to myself must have affected its progress just as surely as my having to cope alone without help both of a practical or emotional support.
So conditioned are we to think that every and any celebration must include alcohol that even after I’d made the decision to stop, my Christmas relapses were always due to the fact that I thought I couldn’t enjoy them without it. As it is Christmas is not my favourite time of year so anything which would oil the wheels seemed to me a must. What about the Christmas just gone then?
In June I made my escape from the unspeakably inconsiderate oaf who spoiled my life for seventeen months by playing loud music all night and moved into another flat within the block where I’ve lived for years. With apprehension I heard that a couple was moving in beside me. I dreaded it in case they were a couple of beer swilling louts with an equally loud stereo system and no desire to wear headphones. I worried myself to death for days until I could stand it no longer. Armed with a box of chocolates I did something I’m not noted for – I rang their bell and introduced myself to them. They invited me in, told me they’d suffered in the same way and that they were quiet and private people who also avoided alcohol. We clicked at once and are now not just neighbours but friends and I was so touched when, dreading Christmas as I always do, they invited me round for Christmas dinner. I had the loveliest Christmas possible. The lady of the house is a superb cook and I’ve been teasing them both about constructing a serving hatch in the adjoining wall so that I can push my plate through at meal times. They popped in for New Year’s Eve and throughout both occasions we drank coke or water. When I came home and when they left after each celebration, respectively, I was on such a self-induced high that on went the headphones and up went the music! Then I said to myself, with a shock: “June, you’ve done it all without alcohol but not without friends whose kindness helped you accomplish it”. Both these lovely people keep their eyes on me. If they don’t see me for a little while, I get a ring on the bell to ask if I’m okay. It’s taken me all my adult life to realise that celebrations, especially Christmas and New Year do not have to be lived in an alcoholic haze and life can be happy without it too.
Of course one addiction or need if you like has been replaced with another. I live with music in my ears and as I’ve said before I’ve a strong compulsion to write but at least these are harmless compulsions especially since, in the case of music, I keep it at a sensible volume because I need my ears so much more than I would if I could see. I have been invited to my friends’ and neighbours’ wedding this year and, yes, I expect that too will be an alcohol free affair but the obvious love they feel for each other is all they need and having them as my new neighbours and friends is all I need so folks, if you’re struggling with alcohol consumption and were, like me, conditioned to believe that you can’t manage your celebrations without it, the good news is that you can. Also, if you feel a bit apprehensive about popping round to new neighbours with a box of chocks and introducing yourself, go on, give it a go! You may be unlucky and find you’ve met a real waste of space like I did when the floods in my first flat caused me to live underneath the neighbour from hell but then again you may, as I have, strike oil. Whatever the outcome, if you sit in your own flat or apartment or house, isolated and drinking alone as I did, you’ll never know and you may miss the warmth and kindness of others which will come back to you for that which you gave and that is more beneficial and precious than any number of bottles of alcohol. Here’s to friendship, love and kindness, as I sit here with my cup of tea!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)