Happy new year to everybody

Here in eastern Oz, only New Zealand in the world  beats us into the new year.

It's been a better year for me than for many years.  The gradual recovery from the Henrik/Jack/Arn disaster proceeded; my job got better; we paid off more debt.  All I need to do now is lose some weight!

To all of you: happy new year.

Aan almal van julle: 'n gelukkige en voorspoedige nuwe jaar

A vous tous: bonne annee

A Ustedes todos: feliz ano nuevo.

Just as I have climbed out of my slough of despond, so I hope you all will be well, will be very well in 2015.  Thanks for following this blog.  Onwards and upwards.

Happy list

Each day I make a list of things to be happy about.  It's a little technique I've found which helps when I'm down.

Here's today's list:

Arctotis/Gousblom

The perfect little white daisies (bellis perennis, I think) are thickly sprinkled on the lawn, startlingly white against the spring green.  The annual gousblom (arctotis) is everywhere, the little flower heads turned and turning towards the sun.  The pin oak (quercus palustris) is budding as is the nyssa and the copper beech (fagus sylvatica purpurea) has its wonderful copper/bronze buds.  Such beautiful trees.

White Bellis Perennis growing in a meadow

My knee is getting a little bit less sore.  And I'm slowly losing the weight I must to eliminate pain completely.  I am otherwise well.  My back isn't too bad.

Copper beech foliage

I'm writing again.  Not much, not fluently, but I am writing.  I even wrote on the train today, for the first time in weeks.

We are paying off our debts

Played clarinet today, and I'm determined to do it every day from now on.  My technique has gone to hell, but my fingers remember where the notes are.  Lips not yet strong enough though.  Will have to build their strength up over time.

At work, I'm beating the All Ords index, which is VERY hard to do.  Especially in volatile markets.  Don't expect it to last though.  The Goddess of markets is readying herself to punish me.

Advancing in Spanish.  Perfectly understood Lesson 5 of the course today for the first time.  And I'm committed to doing some every day.  Progress!

I might not have any friends, but I have my lady and my children and they compensate!  I'm so glad I have them.

I have beauty, shelter, food, books, music, passable health, a decent job, people to love.  My life is full.    What more do I need?   There is so much to be glad about.

See?  That was easy.  :-)

Health Update

Four or five weeks ago I "did" my knee.   I used to run long distances and as I posted here, my running shoes definitely damaged my knees.  That attempt to start running again failed.  Which is pretty sad, because I adore running.  Anyway, running and even walking being impossible, I decided to swim instead.  Don't much like swimming but ... what can you do?  I have to exercise.

But I did my knee at a swim session!  Maybe it was the bouncing around while I was trying to get water out of my ears.  Maybe it was ....  Who knows?

Anyway, a long a tedious program of tests and doctors' visits started.  X-rays.  Ultrasound.  MRI.  And it all culminated in a visit to the knee surgeon on Tuesday.  I had hoped that an arthroscopy would be enough to fix things.  But it was not to be.  I have lost virtually all the cartilage in my right knee.

He suggested three treatment options.

First, glucosamine.  In about 30% of cases it helps, he said (he's a professor at the University of Melbourne and also head of the Royal Melbourne Hospital orthopaedics unit)  It has certainly helped me, even though the Wikipedia article doubts its effectiveness.  My pain (which is often severe) has been greatly reduced.  I'm taking a vegetarian glucosamine (I am a vegetarian).

Second, weight loss.  Losing 25 kgs (55 lbs) is often as effective a treatment as knee replacement.  I've started!

Third, knee replacement therapy.  He says I'm young for that, LOL.  It lasts 15 years or so and then you need to do it again.  I want to postpone that extreme solution as long as possible.

I walk with a stick, which is uncommonly tiresome, and the pain depresses me.  But as ever, I hope for better days!  I am losing weight (1.9 kgs/4.2 lbs since Wednesday); glucosamine does seem to help; and I intend to start swimming again this coming week.

As ever, onwards and upwards.

Just passed ...

90,000 page views since I started this blog in March 2011.  Wow!

Thank youse all.

A bit low

Jane Austen writes, in Sense and Sensibility I think, about one of her heroines that she was "struggling against a tendency to feel low".  That's how I feel right now.  And I'm wondering whether it's worth doing all my writing and blogging and editing.  I do it for fun, but sometimes .... I wonder whether it's worth all the very hard work.  Certainly, I make zilch from it.

My back hurts, my knees hurt, my feet hurt ... LOL, I'm a proper catalog of tedious ailments.

Never mind.  It's almost the weekend (Friday here in Oz) and it's my lady's birthday this Sunday so we'll celebrate.  Meanwhile, I'll list (again!) all the arguments about why I should be happy.

50 Lengths

 

Today I swam 50 lengths of our local municipal pool, which is 1.25 kilometres, or 0.8 miles.  It took me 45 minutes, including pauses for breath at each end.  I aim to swim 1.6 kilometres eventually.  This is all part of the grand plan to lose weight, get fit, and become totally fab.  Or something.

I'm swimming much faster than I was when I started (was it just 2 weeks ago?)  And I'm not especially tired, though my back and shoulders ache a little.  And I've started swimming butterfly!  Two lengths, but I'm building up to swimming 1 length of crawl, 1 of breaststroke and 1 butterfly in rotation.  Sometimes I can't swim butterfly, because I'm sharing the lane with another swimmer.  But it's wonderfully vigorous.

After I'm finished I feel in a really good mood.  I was singing in the change room!

This is what my speedo looks like -- exactly this colour.  And now I can easily fit into a medium!  I bought it from Target (Oz's Target has nothing to do with the US's) for $15.  It's kinda sexy, I think.

Up, up and away

Downtown -- or to be more precise, inner urban Melbourne -- worked its magic. We visited the Café Università, where parts of both Footy and I Get no Kick from Champagne happen, we went to an excellent second-hand bookshop and bought some cheap books (ah, the sharp and satisfying joy of second-hand bookshops!), we had a cheap lunch at a pavement café, and we watched The Girl who Played with Fire, the second film in the Millennium trilogy. The crits had been neutral or scathing but I enjoyed it. Perhaps because the clichés were Swedish rather than Hollywood, they appeared fresh to me. A good book or film will take you out of yourself, will make you feel what it's like to be one of the people in the world depicted, and that helped lift my mood. I've decided I simply have to visit Sweden. Prolly not going to happen (I have too little dosh) but what I can do is learn Swedish. It was tantalising understandable all the way through this film and its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (A fantastic film by the way.) I love the way non-Hollywood films use unglamorous and plain leads. So refreshing.

Most of all, though, I did what I've found helpful, and that is to count my blessings. Yes, my life is far from perfect, but hey, it could be much worse. There is a blind teen I've seen around town. How I try and scold myself into happiness is this: I imagine what he would feel like to suddenly have his sight restored. Then I tell myself that I have my sight. So I should be as happy as he might be were he able to see again. Sometimes it works. :-)

Anyway, will end with this shmaltzy song. When this was a hit they were in the middle of an appalling war. But somehow we have to keep going. They did, and I can too.

Oh how the mighty are fallen

Years ago, I knew this amazingly beaut guy, who went on to become a model, for a while. He had nearly black hair, grey eyes which appeared darker than they were because of his sooty lashes, so that it was only close up that you saw just how beautiful they were, a creamy skin, and a perfect body, neither too skinny nor too muscled. Moreover, he had that natural charm which comes to confident, beautiful people provided they don't get swollen-headed. At a time when most young guys would have died rather than admit they found another man attractive, he always was the centre of attention at any party and the guys there were as attentive as the women.

We lost touch, but I saw a picture of him yesterday, 35 years since I last met him. Oh man. What's happened to me has happened to him: time's wingèd arrow. He's fat, and completely bald. That lovely thick floppy hair so casually flicked to one side, so sensuous you wanted to run your hands through it--all gone. I wouldn't have recognised him if I hadn't been told who it was. He still has a lovely smile though. And I bet in person he's just as much a charmer as he always was.

In some ways I've aged much better than he has (but then don't we all think that?) because I was never handsome as a young man. Now I'm not handsome as an older one. :-)

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again.

Can't think why I'm in such a good mood. Oh. I know. It's Friday. By the way, should you see the guy in the pic, send him over, won't you? I am quite at leisure.

(Incidentally, this pic comes from GayTwoGether. Worth a visit)