Feb 2011

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Dear All,

 

If you think these newsletters are an embarrassing conceit, I would sympathise with you when you search for the JUNK button.  However I am not about to spend an hour handwriting a short (and illegible) note to you, so you can read this instead if you feel up to it.

 

I have been continuously busy, and the quality of life is curiously OK in the circumstances.  I still do some work, and it is really gratifying when I manage something worthwhile.  Son (and boss) George at any rate seems to regard my efforts indulgently.

 

We go down to Hampshire to see George Wanda Louis and Hugo, and daughter Julie, Richard Tom and Melissa, regularly, usually for the day.  In summer they rent a beach hut on the seafront near Bournemouth which is marvellous fun.

 

We went to China for 5 weeks in Sept/Oct to see Amber’s daughter Astra, who has lived there for 15 years, with husband Li Ji and son Finn.  The flight was good.  We had upgraded to super economy, so that with the 7 inches extra leg room I was able to stand up, go to the loo, etc..  At both ends I was ferried around in a wheelchair by an attendant, no worries about where to go and when, so it was all painless.  As you could imagine with my first big trip I had worried myself about all sorts of difficulties, but it was a breeze.   The weather was beautiful, clear skies every day and outside in shirtsleeves.  Made it twice as nice to hear what the weather was like in UK.  At the end of our trip though it suddenly went cold.
 

I had acupuncture there practically every day.  They stick about 50 pins in my scalp, stomach, arms and legs, and leave me to daydream for half an hour.  I also I had medicine brewed up from a sackfull of Chinese herbs (I hope) 3 times a day.  And did it work?  As Chou En Lai said when asked about the French revolution, it's too early to say.  Actually I think it may have done some good.  If I close my eyes and Amber touches me very lightly, I can tell whereabouts it is pretty well, and I don’t think I could do that a month earlier.  And Amber is convinced that it gave me more energy and accelerated my rate of improvement.
 
While in China we went to HongKong for a week to see Amber's son Cass, his wife Lucy and their new baby son Rex, who is a sweetie.  They have a flat in Mid-Levels, which is close to the centre of Hong Kong island, with amazing views of the harbour (glimpsed between skyscrapers admittedly).  We went to Stanley,  Repulse Bay (where they are members of the swanky HK Country Club), Aberdeen, Kowloon on the Star ferry.  Travel is a great privilege.
 
China is the most amazing place.  The energy, and the speed, and the quality!  If you were in Beijing 5 years ago you wouldn’t believe the progress and development.  When Astra moved here by the 4th ring road 10 years ago most of the roads were dirt.  Now it is all built up and busy, with shopping malls etc, and they have built the 6th ring road.  And I hear they are working on plans for the 13th ring road!   They have planted trees and bushes and flowers in masses all down the roads, and they look after them beautifully.   They were not done just for the Olympics, trees apparently help in reducing the effects of sandstorms which they get occasionally. They just do stuff - if they want a new flyover they just build it in three weeks, whereas here it would take years in the planning stage, construction would cost 3 times more than the budget, it would cause endless traffic diversions, with only one or two workmen to be seen at any one time, desultorily pushing a broom or talking on a mobile.   Bah humbug!  In the local supermarket they have a whole floor devoted to biscuits!  When I was here 30 years ago you would be lucky if they had any biscuits at all.  But strangely there are no mobility scooters, and I get admiring comments on mine wherever I go.  The Chinese have no hang-ups about staring, and asking a total stranger how much something cost.   New hotels and shopping malls are all over the place, with western prices, so the Chinese prosperous classes are a real growing force.  Mercs Porsches and Audis are commonplace, with the odd Maserati Lamborgini and Bentley thrown in.  They are not catching us up, they are taking a different route, and at the upper end they are establishing a level of prosperity far in advance of us.  But come to think of it, the same is true of most places today.

I’ve got a new battery device on my right knee which, when my shin reaches a critical angle, sends a pulse of electricity to the nerves in my calf which makes my foot jerk up, and this makes it a lot easier to walk without dragging my toes along the ground or hitching my foot round in a wide arc.  It is a little device, about £10 worth of electronics, but they charge £2,500 for it.  In theory you should get it on the NHS, but the NHS appears to be broke as far as peripheral services goes, which is a bummer for those who need something but do not have the resources.

 

I continue with therapies – I am seeing 3 therapists at the moment.  They are very good at telling me what to do, each with their own angle of basically the same thing, and they give me lots of exercises to do.  The problem is that, though I am very willing, I don’t seem to get the time to do them as much as I ought to.  Nevertheless I continue to improve – getting my right foot out of the bath on its own without levering it up with my left foot, sitting down on (and being able to get up from!) the sofa, walking about the house without a stick, etc..  Sometimes I make a nice discovery, a move which I haven’t been working on and which I hadn’t tried because I did not think it workable is suddenly there, free gratis.  It's interesting to see the small improvements, just a fraction of a percent at a time, from 10%, to 10.1%, to 10.5%, but always better.  I might even say that it's fun!  The difficult one is from 0% to 0.1%, but once you've got something, however small, you can work on it and improve it. 

 

It is all based on neuroplasticity, which has only come through in the last 15 years or so.  The brain and nervous system has 100m pathways, of which only 10m are used, and a major stroke wipes out less than 5m of those.  So there are plenty of unused pathways, you just have to train the brain to find, remember and exercise new pathways.  The muscles, after all, are undamaged.  Its funny, sometimes you forget how to make a move you did yesterday, and you have to search around your brain for the thought which will provoke it.  They used to think that if you had a stroke or something neuro similar then that was it, no improvement after the first few months, and now they realise that the brain is plastic which means that, with effort, it can be remoulded.  I suppose an Indian yogi would have no trouble at all with a stroke. 

 

We have booked to go to our flat in Argentina (Jan-4 to Mar-4) and are looking forward to escaping the dreadful cold, damp, dark gloom which descends on England when the clocks go back.  The flat is on the 3rd floor without a lift, but I have been practising going up and down stairs here 10 times on the trot.  The real test though will be doing it with a few glasses of Malbec inside me.  I will take my electric buggy with me, but am mentally prepared for the lousy pavements making it quite impractical or for it to get stolen.  Each house or building there is responsible for the upkeep of its own bit of pavement.   Friends may come to stay while we are there, but it is one of those things where it arouses much interest but little positive result.  It would be nice for Amber to have someone to go out with on their own occasionally – I’ll be alright, really I will!  I have realised why I like it so much there (one of the reasons).  Life is so simple when you just have a few summer clothes, simple furniture, eat in restaurants and cafes, read books, and just wander about.  And with the internet and Skype you can be just as connected and in touch as you are at home.  Mirian has been keeping an eye on the flat whilst we’ve been away.  Son Oscar and girlfriend Indra were there for 5 weeks in (UK) summer, and contributed to the elegance of the local tango scene.

 

I hope you have a stress-free Christmas and New Year, and make sure you get your full share of fun in 2011.

 

I think of you all fondly.

 

Gavin

 

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