Jules is continuing to get over her fainting dramas and 8 hour hospitalisation.....by working like a Trojan in the garden, and demanding that I do the same. So I did.
It's now after 11 pm, so it's late to be doing my blog. But from the outset I wanted to point out that I hate predictive text and apologise for the way it might alter the meaning of this entry.....
This morning we made a trip to the manure dump (yes, we live near a race course which has numerous stables nearby) and collec
As stroke survivors, some things are sent to test us. This morning at 5.55 I awoke to hear my wife vomiting in the ensuite bathroom. I called was she OK, and received a "yes". As she walked back to bed she said she felt dreadful, and before even managing to get between the sheets, she had to return to the bathroom.
The next I hear is a loud crashing sound, and leapt out of as best I could, opened the bathroom door and found Jules unconscious on the floor. She had landed on her head, her left
The worse thing about a stroke is that it robs one of strength and endurance......and nowhere is this more so in Kyneton in winter. Especially when one has unlimited access to magnificent burnable red gum trees just waiting to be felled.
But with no trailer nor a car with a tow bar, and with no strength or endurance, and having lost the use of one arm, and having no chainsaw anyway, I have to pay through my damn nose to buy wood at $150 per cubic metre.
God. If I had the strength to use
It's been 2-3 days since I last blogged, so better late than never.
Friday Jules and I drove from home to Melbourne (1 hr 15 min and about 90km) so I could hav my first real mtg with a bloke from the Monash Epworth Research division which is doing a study into ppl with brain injury like yours truly, and it revolves around two areas: sleep and fatigue.
I saw the bloke concerned with sleep, and as I have a dreadful sleep pattern (most nights I get 3-5 hours of interrupted zeds) I was a n
The freezing weather continues. It's getting Jules and I down. The summer was mild, so why inflict us with a severe winter???? Everyone is complaining about it. And I really feel it, both in my stiffness and in the way in hampers my style in being able to go outdoors and walk. I need the exercise. Without the exercise the body starts to shut down.
Had a good meeting at the Men's Shed today, followed by a better than usual sausage sizzle on the BBQ. But apart from that there is again l
The weather is still bloody freezing. Tried to use the hose to fill the chickens' water around 9 am this morning.....but water was still frozen in the pipes. Typical. I retire NOT to the wonderfully warm tropics.....but to the frozen winter climes of Victoria's Macedon ranges. That'll teach me!!!!
The saga of our garage roller door continued today....not that you, the readers, will understand as I have not mentioned it before. But how long does it take to install a solar powered roller
I almost feel as though my last report on 48 hours of tedium could very well be repeated here, but perhaps not. The weather in Kyneton, not renown for its mild winters, has steadily been getting more and more freezing. Yesterday and today we experienced snow flurries on Mount Macedon, and tonight these are expected in Kyneton. At least that would be a change from the polar-like winds that the past two days have brought. And at least with snow you know you are getting value for money out of wi
The past 48 hours have been dreary. In fact, I don't know why I'm even bothering to report anything. But I know if I don't blog, I will become lazy and eventually nothing will happen. So, in brief, this is what has occurred during the past 48 hours:
..I went to Gisborne to attend a cluster meeting of all the five Men's Shed that operate in the Macedon Ranges. Nothing much happened.
..returned home at 3 pm and discovered Jules was not here and guessed she had gone to Melbourne to help m
Today was so-so. Took my pooch, Moochie for a 30-minute walk, then stopped off at a house down the road where the fence and picket gate had been pulled out....and took the gate! Jules will be able to use it in our garden....once I have managed to "age" it.
Went to the Kyneton Men's Shed and had lunch....much better than the usual snags in bread. One of the bloke's wife had made sausage rolls, and he brought them along in a pie warmer. We chatted over lunch (there were about a dozen of us
Some days are like diamonds......while others make me feel as though I am digging up fool's gold. And just occasionally I find it's both. Today was such a day.
The morning was fine. While Jules went to the gym, I went for a 30-minute walk with Moochie. On my return I discovered workmen installing the garage roller door we had been waiting for for weeks. It's almost finished...just have to wait for the battery and solar panel to be installed tomorrow.
The middle part of the day was m
Today has been a good day despite some bad news. The bad news is that my daughter's father-in-law, Will, is in hospital undergoing tests on his heart etc after suffering severe arm and shoulder pains while holidaying in Scotland. He went to a Glasgow hospital twice and staff there determined there was nothing wrong. Luckily, Will decided not to take their word for it, cut short his holiday and took the first available plane back to Melbourne, Australia.
On arrival he again suffered severe
OK, Steve Mallory! I have accepted your challenge! :-)
1. I was a choir boy at the age of 10-13.
2. I went to Adelaide's oldest private school, Pulteney Grammar School.
3. I was a Cub, a Scout, a Senior Scout and a Rover.
4. I was a Queen's Scout.
5. In my youth I was a bush walker (hiker to the Yanks) and knew the local hills like the back of my hand.
6. I have twice walked the west and southern coasts of Kangaroo Island on multi day walks.
7. I once represented, at the age of 15, So
I make no apologies for my verbal diarrhea. I simply like writing. So there. But as I have spent some 50 years involved in media as a journalist/ foreign correspondent/speech writer/publicist I suppose that pouring out my heart via a blog simply becomes second nature.
Today is freezing....so what's new? It's always bloody freezing at Kyneton in winter, and I loathe it. I'm looking forward to later this year when Jules and I have purchased, via www.luxuryescapes.com.au, 7 nights in Far
Last night we had a Kyneton couple around for dinner, and the end result was terrific. Ian and Simon are gay, and have a house about 200 metres away from us. Ian, a New Zealander, is an architect and designed our renovations, while Simon is, arguably, Australia's best garden and food photographer - as well as having his own books published.
We first met Ian in a local cafealmost 3 years ago, and he came down to our rundown cottage with its wild and overgrown garden and atarted giving us
I don't understand the photos on this website. Is it possible to include large photos within each blog or is it not? I had wanted to show some frosty cold pics of Kyneton this morning at 7.30 when the fog was thick and the ground crunched when one walked on it and the temp was minus 1.5. But try as I might, I couldn't figure it out. Do I have to have a photo on a webite and then get the pic to appear by using an URL?
Maybe someone who has been here faaaaar longer than I can offer some helpfu
I said I'm off to a slow start, but I never realised it would be so damn slow. The past 3-4 weeks seem to have flown and I don't appear to have done much at all. Now I'm having problems remembering what I have and have not done.
But things have been happening:
..We drove back to Adelaide for several days (a round trip of about 2,000 km) to see Jules's 93 yo mum as she had been rushed to hospital......only to find that she was sitting up in bed looking fine. Makes me wonder how many more
I’m making a slow start. But, hey, at least I’m making it!
My previous blog ran for more than 3½ years and was some 275,000 words spread over more than 1,250 pages. And now it’s disappeared from sight as Australia's National Stroke Foundation moves forwards (I reckon its backwards) with its new “enableme” website and ditches its previous “StrokeConnect” website.
I’m hoping this place is much more user-friendly, and allows easy uploading of jpegs. The NSF site was hopeless when one wante
My name is John Mitchell, and I am a stroke survivor. I used to be journalist, foreign correrspondent, public servant, publicist, photojournalist and speechwriter.
I had a heart attack Christmas day, 2009, went to hospital, and two days later had a triple bypass. The operation was messy and involved a lot of bleeding, resulting in the surgeon having to undertake a "redo".
During the first or second operations I suffered three strokes, and rather spending 7-8 days in one hospital befor
