In spite of everything . . .

Wellness is a fickle taunter!

I thought that I was trundling along the path of coughless delight, where phlegm flowers would no longer bloom when, as so many times before, I made the basic mistake of waking up.  First conscious breath and my tracheae made a bit for freedom.  An orchestrated double concerto for vocal chords and lung!  By the time I had finished I felt that any attempt to leave my bed would be foolhardiness at best and attempted self-destruction at worst.

But the alarm then went off, and like any well trained Russian laboratory animal I dutifully and instinctively rose to take my first puff of medicine.  Justifiably exhausted by two droplet infused inhalations I fell back to my pillow only to be raised, Lazarus-like an hour later for the next puff.  It may not seem like much of a life, but the endlessly irritating gobbets of so-called tune that comprise the iPhone alarm, structure my day for me!  I may be retired from school, but I still exist to the sound of bells!

Phase I of my revision is now done.  Phase II is making the final detailed notes of the essential information which has to be scattered among the generalizations that I intend to make the basis for my responses to the questions.

So, revision, start of a new course, start of another one in nine days, illness and, as a special feature – slimming!  Or at least trying to change my diet a little.  I have to admit that bronchitis is a useful ally in slimming as it does somewhat reduce the appetite – though I would like to think that sheer will-power could achieve this were I fully well.

Apart from a stubborn inclination to produce my own rousing dawn chorus of coughing, I am determined to think that I am getting better.  We will soon see how far rude health and sparse ingestion co-exist!

I have now placed a pad and pen at my bedside and was therefore able to capture in written words “the ruffled sound of a distant cough” – I am sure that will come in useful sometime or other!

The writing of a daily haiku is now becoming something like brushing your teeth: a chore but something which makes you feel better.  It has been a long time since I wrote poetry (or anything approaching it) on a regular basis.  I used to find that self-indulgent misery was the requisite spur for me, but with the demands of the course looming large on a methodically on-going basis, moping has to give way to a form of professionalism.  Writing is work and has to be done, with or without the clichéd starter of elegant depression!

Lunch with Irene has been put off for a further week, although she assures me that the raw material for the meal is safely frozen and will survive another week’s wait.  I have made an executive decision that, obviously, this meal will not be subject to the calorific restraints under which I am living at the moment.  This occasion will be regarded officially as a “Feeding Fiesta” and Will Not Count.  My cunning plan is to hope that my diet (now a week long, dear god is it only a week) will encourage suppression of appetite so that I will, instinctively, choose smaller amounts and thus continue along The Way to redemption.  Not a great plan, but it is all I have at the moment.

The lashing rain of yesterday evening, accompanied by OTT thunder and stage lightening which have given way this morning to a beautiful day of clear blue skies and streaming sunshine.  If only the canine population of the area would develop terminal laryngitis then we humans might be able to relax in placid, warm tranquillity.

As it is the weekend, the other bane of our lives, children, are openly on display.  One of the true delights of retirement is walking around town during the weekday without having ears assaulted by shards of childish scream.  The ranks of the Grey Brigade take over the streets and a secret smile plays about the lips as we retake what is rightfully ours.  I must, however, try and restrain my impulse to call the police every time I see a child during the forbidden times – though they all should be in school and stay in school for lunch and after school activities!

It is now almost the afternoon, at least in Spain and I have the opportunity to get going on Phase II of my revision before its official start tomorrow. 

Choices, always choices. 

And how did I ever find time to do an actual job?

Work to do!

Improvement!  

A palpable improvement!  

Perhaps there is hope that this ridiculously elongated period of a-healthicality has now, or at least is in the process of being consigned to deadened memory.

The revision continues to go well.  It could hardly fail when what I am reading is interesting.  The only points which now are still causing me some concern are those related to the academic authorities which I understand that we actually have to cite by accurate name! 

The problem is, with very few exceptions, the historians and social commentators to who we have been introduced have names which do not have harmonious mixtures of consonants and vowels – or at least not in easily memorable sequences.  I do hope that my examiners take effort as an adequate compensation for a singular lack of specifics!

Today I have been “studying” elements in the course ranging from self-replicating Buddhist relics to Indonesian monoliths by way of Romani processions in the Camargue.  It is, as you can imagine, a course almost purpose made for me!

Tomorrow the course forum for Creative Writing opens and later this month the course on “Brands” run by FutureLearn starts – and there are courses run by Apple for me to get to know my various gadgets a little better.  Never let it be said that I have retired from education.  Only the direction of learning is different!

Tomorrow the final stint to finish off the third volume of my course and the “rough” revision is done.  Next week will see the more detailed Learning revision.  And I can’t wait for the examination to be over and done with!

Other courses call!

Down we go!

Feeling worse, but revised better.  

Go figure!

I am now putting total faith in the couple of “puffers” that I have to do the job and get rid of the irritating illness which has now been in the vicinity for far, far longer than I am used to.  A day feeling unwell I can cope with; a second week seems like malicious victimization and I want none of it!

Toni keeps asking if I feel better and I am giving in to the relentless expectation of improvement and am almost convincing myself that I do feel, perhaps, maybe a bit better.  The mornings and evenings are not good time, but there is a middle period in which I can enter into the self-deception with something like enthusiasm.

I am now on the third and last volume of information that has to be at my fingertips for the examination.  Our tutor has, at last managed to sort our the terminal problems with the IT in her house and is now back in contact with us and is supplying the sort of information about the exam which creates panic and despair in students!  No, it is all good stuff, though if you read between the lines of the good, solid suggestions there are little hits which suggest that you should have done much more than you actually have!  It is the demand for specifics rather than the General Picture which strikes a chill into my heart!  However, if all goes well and the “puffers” do their stuff then I will be able to deliver on what they are going ask.  Probably.

The tutor for the next course has been in touch and we are obviously going to hit the ground running, as soon as the tutor forum is open for business.  And the sooner the better to my mind – though the revision and illness does make it more than a little problematical!

Though the one clear thought which always comes to mind to see me through occasions like this is the simple fact that I am doing all this “because I want to” – and that makes all the difference!

Coughing is the spice of life!

Enough!  

I am thoroughly bored by my bout of bronchitis – it now is glorified by having a name of a known illness and by my having not one, but two puffers to do something to it.  My coughing is still at competition level, especially in the mornings and evenings and I am thoroughly put out.

I do not do illness very well.  I am more than prepared to have a day in bed from time to time to acknowledge that the human frame is prone to illness, but my tolerance does not really extend further than that.  And when the symptoms extend themselves to ten days then my patience is just about exhausted.

Today was one of those days when anything more than listless reading was impossible and after a light-ish lunch I took to my bed for an extended snooze.  I think that this was really quite a sensible idea and I felt both guilty and refreshed at the end of it.  I have convinced myself that this little jaunt to the land of Nod was necessary payment to get over the hump and work my way towards full health.

By way of acceptable displacement activity I have reorganized the spice jars.

When you see that sentence in a paragraph by itself the full fatuous emptiness of my activity is glaringly obvious.  However, I maintain (stoutly) that such activity is of proven worth.

My spice rack is a three-rack affair which is not in any way freestanding and therefore rests (the wrong way round) against a piece of kitchen wall next to the gas stove.  The spice jars have been a constant cause of irritation ever since I found some perfect ones in a local shop, decided to change everything with the immediate result of the shop instantly ceasing to stock them - and they have never stocked them since.  I did try a different jar with a metal clasp closure on them which were tiny and inefficient.  The time to change was obviously forcing itself upon me.

The trigger for the change was the opening of yet another Chinese Supermarket in our little town.  This was more of a hypermarket with furniture, umbrellas, electronics, plastic, artificial flowers and everything else that you could possibly think of.  You have to understand that in crisis struck Spain the Chinese are making their move to take over the entire commercial life of the country.  Today, Chinese shops are a byword for the places you go to find the thing that you can’t find anywhere else.  You may not get quality, but you do get “it”.

Amazingly I had no small stickers to go on the jars (which I previously bought from a distinctly “Chinese” everything-for-1€ section in Carrefour) and so was forced to go and shop.  The selection was not great but I did get the stickers and found a metallic something-or-other which I hoped could work as a spice rack.

It didn’t.  But Toni used a highly honed intelligence and made it work by adding a delightfully Heath-Robinson dongle to give it stability.  I have now made executive decisions about which spices have pride of place and which are condemned to life in a plastic box.  The area is now neat and cleared.

This is yet another example of a relatively small change making a huge difference in look and activity.  It is like changing the furniture, or just changing the furniture around which can give a whole new approach to living!

At the same shop as that which provided the jars I have also got my new notebooks for the new course.  The idea of making do with a small quarto book was simply not sufficient to allow the exercises that the OU demands and so I have had to get a couple of A4 plain paper books to give opportunity to keep up with what needs to be done and to have some central area for reference when the OU asks you to refer to the notebooks to justify you productions.  I am sure that it will all make sense in time.

There are now seven days to go to the examination and the past couple of days have not helped my plans for revision.  Today I have done very little (well, none) but I have done some writing for the next course.  I have completed my daily haiku; I have done some Freewriting and I have also used the clustering technique to get ideas flowing.  I am sure that this will soon become a habit, but it does seem a little artificial at the moment.  Still, artifice is what it is all about.

Tomorrow, phlegm permitting, I will crack on the end of the second book and start the third.  There is still plenty of time for me to give more than adequate attention to all the areas which I will have to explain in the exam and be able to do some work on the new course.  Saturday is the official start of A215 Creative Writing and Sunday will see us in the delayed meal in Irene’s.

We have to visit her soon as our collection of plastic bottle tops has now outgrown our plastic bottle top container!  The collection of these things is part of an effort to get help to a young child who is suffering from meningitis.  I have to say that I have been horrified by the number of plastic bottles of whatever that we use during a couple of weeks.  Collecting the tops does however give us a sense of usefulness and there is never anything wrong with hugging that warm feeling of smugness that we are “doing the right thing”!

And the right thing for tomorrow is getting stuck in to the work that needs to be done thoroughly before the 10^th!