My positivity cracked a bit today.

I was asked to transfer from the bed to the wheelchair and have it filmed so that the team in the Wellington would know what to expect when I got there ( perhaps this week )

Amber was here, so she filmed it for us – 12 year olds are pretty good with camera phones – better than their parents, for sure ( as a rule )

It takes 2 people just to sit me up in bed, as I have no ability to do that with the metal in my back not bending  …. at all.

Then the same two people have to pull and push me ( respectively ) from the bed to the chair, across a piece of plywood ( called a slide board )

Before I came here on August 23rd, I could do all of this myself without too much difficulty, and without the plywood. Now I can barely contribute, as without any abilitiy to bend, the physics of it just don’t work. In other words, I’m totally dependent currently on 2 people to get in or out of bed, or get dressed and undressed, and my physique has been totally ravaged.

I’d sort of accepted this status and not got down about it, but after Amber had left I watched the video and the reality of my situation sank in.

It sank in and swallowed me up altogether, and the tears flowed. It’s been a good while since I felt down at all, but suddenly all positivity left me, and I fell off the cliff again.

I had about an hour of solemnity, where I put the TV on loud to drown out my thoughts, and before my school friend, Lisa Jones, arrived.

We were in infants school together, in Griffithstown, a bloody long time ago, yet she has the compassion to drive the 3 -4 hours to visit  me,  over 40 years later.

To see what a Welsh girl brings a Welsh bloke as a  present, see the picture ..

Lisa is clever, kind and insightful, and not materialistic  in any way  – characteristics that are now so very important to me, more so than the trappings of wealth.

Amazingly just now, as I was writing this, another of our little class mates from that tiny school in South Wales, just phoned me . What are the chances of that  ? It was lovely to speak for half an hour to the lovely Sian Lewis, and to tell her that I’d just said goodbye to Lisa Jones

Also I should add that Micheal Jenkins from the same class, and for sure my oldest friend, was in London yesterday and due to call in, but his work meetings went on too long, and he had to catch the last ram back to Wales

So thats 4 of us from a class of 20, in 1971 that have been in touch in the space of 2 days .

I don’t know what to say really. Maybe it’s a Welsh thing?  I don’t know if the same compassion exists in the other home nations, to the same extent?

I’ll try to find a class picture of us all that I know I have somewhere, and post it. Both girls mentioned my 18th birthday toga party in Newport, which is probably memorable for all the wrong reasons , one of which is that there wasn’t a single punch thrown, by a lad or a girl…

Seeing Lisa soon brought me back up, and I’m positive once more . We went out and endured the cold wind, drank coffee  and talked non stop

I googled our little school, and there’s not a single picture on the web, of it. Hard to believe, that.

The weekends are definitely lonelier than the week days, so I don’t look forward to them.

But this one has been pretty good,  as far as they go .