Still "Alive"!

I have not entered a new blog in so long. I could come up with excuses like I have a little part time job, and the fact that it is so hard and laborious to type now. There just never seem to be enough hours in the day.Thankfully after a three year gap, I managed to make my first foreign trip.

Getting some sun in Spain, and much needed vitamin C and plus meeting my great old friends was fantastic. I had really resigned myself to the horrible thought that I wou ever be able to get on a plane, and get out of this country again. It was a major confidence booster. Thankfully the gym paid off again and again.  When i was last there three years ago, they saw a very different me, almost completely unable to push or even hold a cup of  tea up to my mouth.( Please do these exercises for an anterior pelvic  tilt. It certainlhy does help. Its only when I see  a photo of myself complete with rounded shoulders that I can gakein my truly awful posture. Thankfully there are steps that can be taken to coiunter it).

With the gym I am so much stronger now, but i was just thinking to myself that I have never been so stiff in my lower body. It requires herculian effort to even turn at night. Somethimes, if I can manage to turn, i end up moving the sheets , leaving me in a very uncomfortable and cold position, or else I'm left teetering on the egde of the bed with one foot poking out. And at this time of year, with the cold nights it does not make that a very nice option. So its either wear very attractive bed socks or risk having my feet go stone cold through lack of circulation.

It could be a lot worse though. Recently i met the mother of someone I used to see in a respite centre locally. He voulntarily went into a nursing home in kildare, as he felt that his needs were getting so great. when i last saw him , he has lost most of his sight due to MS and was with great difficults able to push himself around a bit. I think he is only mid forties. She said she thinks she's the only mother in Ireland who is praying for her son to die. He is now almost completely paralysed from the neck down, and now refusing mediacation. I think he is absolutely right. When I hear about these Youth Defense people, I just have to question what sort of life they believe in. They would say that he has to suffer on "til the good lord takes him"|. These kind of people and their beliefs totally sicken me

i remember blogging about the English man with Locked In Syndrome. Thankfully he died, but the horrible reality is that he could have "lived" on for decades more. Dignity in tatters, and completely at the mercy of other people. I know what he could have  endured for decades more, and I am so happy that he is not going through it anymore.

It makes me so annoyed, especially at this time of year, because i know that the main anti choice argument comes from those who profess to believe earnestly in the rantings of desert itinerants and paedophiles, not to mention supposed birth giving virgins. That poor Indian woman in Galway, painfully paid with her life, as most of the Irish  laws are still based  around, and trying ro preserve these fables.

I can see why christmas is needed by so many regardless of any cult belief. It helps people to get through these horrible cold dark days. Its pitch black  by 5pm now in the bowels of the countryside.

So where do I find myself now? well i have a little "job" in Naas looking after a companys web site, which I have to admit I really do enjoy. The people are lovely, and I don't feel like such a redundant waste of space, which both unemployment and a progressive illness often combine to make you feel. I am still making good progree in the gym, though very often it feels like one step forward and two steps back. Also for anyone reading this, try and get something about Kuntalini Yoga. There are a number of moves, which are very benificial for tight muscles, and core strength.

In Chapters bookshop recently I found a very good book called "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett, which was almost a pity to find after my visit to Madrid. He talks of Spain smothering the past, and it is very true. I never knew how utterly brutal the civil war, and the years under Franco were. It seems to be an issue that is just not discussed. All know is that my friends family are quite pro Franco, and I suppose that terrible deeds were committed by both sides.

I look around my room and I see a very eclectic mix of pseudo souveneirs. African women holding backets, native american chiefs with full head gear, fat buddhas, buddhas with their legs folded and trubal masks . Most of them have been given to me, or I have found them individually in shops, in Dublin. They represent for me, an enticing glimpse of the great cultures and peoples of the world. I haven't a hope in hell of getting to most of these places, so they brighten up my cell here.

If anyone has a chance to get to these places for real, GO!