Still Counting

December 2020:  still counting

When she read my last blog, my wife, Lorraine, complained that I should call it not “Living with heart failure”, but “Gardening with heart failure.”    Fair comment, will try to do better. My message was :  with heart  failure you could still do important things you always did, you just had to learn how to do them m differently and more slowly.

            One way I do things differently and more slowly is climbing stairs.  I could do this, but my, it was hard work, and a long period of shortness of breath awaited me at  the top.  So I took the plunge and bought a stair lift.  Not as straightforward as I expected.  I tried a local company; they had  good salesman, but what a price!  Tried a different one, another great sales spiel, quoted the best part of  £4,000, for a straight stair lift, without  problems.  Tried a third, decided to haggle hard.  Eventually got an offer for just over £2,000, from a reputable firm.  Accepted this as so much better than the other offers, though I suspect I could have got a better deal if I had persisted, though doubtless sacrificing some quality and reliability.  Still I have had a year’s use of the stair lift, not a hint of trouble;  costly but I am so glad we bought it. 

            The vaccine has brought welcome hope towards the end of a difficult year.  Being over 85 and “clinically extremely vulnerable” is sobering, but a small consolation is we shall be among first to receive the vaccine.   A  lot of patience is required, and a lot more hibernation, but there is the prospect of a holiday and most important, seeing my lovely family again – and the opportunity to catch up on long overdue hugs. 

            So, another year, a difficult, often depressing year, has gone by.  I am a little more breathless on exertion, a little slower, more easily fatigued, but still going, more or less independent, and still COUNTING. 

 

Intermittent blog returns

Many apologies to the one possible reader of this blog.  Must do better. 

Plus ça change.  4 years ago in the blog I wrote: “Every year  since I returned from working abroad, I have set myself the target of adding a good dose of compost to the vegetable beds, sowing mustard (green manure), digging it all in when the mustard had gown well, then sowing some more mustard and letting it grow and then die over the winter.  Once upon a time I could manage this effortlessly.  The last few years it has required a big effort, and frequent stops.  But little by little, and a bit later than usual, I have completed the tasks.   There is nothing to match home-grown vegetables; this requires attention to the soil.  Not cost effective, no doubt, but well worth it.  Tomatoes, potatoes and runner beans were this year some of the best ever. 
Suffering from cardiac failure, however inaccurate the term, leads to some soul searching.  Will I still be here next year? If still here, will I be fit enough to do all the raising from seed, planting and tending etc?  Am I foolish to waste valuable time preparing veg beds that may not be used next year?  Who knows?    I prefer to be positive.  However tiring, I actually enjoy managing the beds.  I would be extremely sorry if in a fit of pessimism I left the veg beds untended, and found next year I was fit enough to do the usual garden work, but the beds were not properly prepared."

I have prepared the vegetable bed for runner beans,  adding compost, also for the raspberries.  For greenhouse tomatoes, I now replace old soil with a bucket of compost where each tomato will be planted.  This has worked extremely well, and this year’s crop was one of the best ever.  Potatoes I plant in ten litre buckets, draining of course, which means replacing the soil each year with fresh soil that has not grown potatoes.  Then sowing caliente mustard.    Just like four years ago, this was a slow business, now even slower.  But completed!    Other areas are neglected; there are too many weeds and pruning is behindhand.   Fortunately the weather on the whole has permitted some gardening, itself a welcome relief in lockdown.

Perhaps next year, perish the thought, I shall have to get the help of a gardener. 

I haven’t been doing as much exercise as I used to, have to try to do better. But here I am still,  approaching a rather ancient birthday, but COUNTING.