Sunday 27th November 2022
I have been more than concerned about the breathlessness mentioned in my last post. Since that post the antibiotics eight day course finished and they have had a marked effect. I have walked steeply over Arnside Knott and a couple of other circuits each day of around two miles. I still feel increased breathing on the slightest gradient. On the steeper climbs I can keep going at a steady plod without stopping, but it is hard work. It was only a couple of weeks or so ago that I was completely breathless walking downhill to the local shop and stopping for rests every so often. At the moment I don't see me setting off on the seven to eight milers I have been doing over the last twelve months and I do not know whether permanent lung damage will have been caused or if I may get more improvement with regular exercise. I intend to have another conversation with the doc. about all this before the second x-ray he has scheduled for me between Christmas and New Year.
Yesterday my walk had a second objective. Derek, a fiend of Pete, who I also know on a less personal basis, recently lost his wife and obtained permission from National Trust to place a memorial bench on Arnside Knott, and I decided to have a look. As a skilled and qualified carpenter Derek made the bench himself (National Trust veto any written dedications on these benches.) The location was close to another bench that I have had earmarked as one of the three best viewpoints in my area. One doesn't see my bench until almost on top of it and many is the time I have approached hoping that nobody is sitting there on my bench. I found Derek's bench just round the corner giving just as good a view as its companion.
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| Typical Knott scenery catching a modest ray of sunshine |
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| Derek's bench. The photo majors on the bench and gives almost no indication of the splendid view which would not have been possible to give justice to anyway in these murky conditions. |
Three of the best.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you visiting Derek's bench without too much breathlessness. Without being morbid where do want your bench sited?
I think there may be vacancies for your ever-increasing modelling skills in the film industry.
You don't need a raison d'être for outstanding artwork - let the art critics in the future postulate.
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ReplyDeleteBy all means continue to consult about the breathlessness; it's a symptom for a huge range of ailments, not all of them primarily associated with the pulmonary system. It's often the second or even third set of questions (plus their answers, of course) that starts to hint at the cause.
ReplyDeleteI was interested in the NT's veto on dedications. Briefly I thought this seemed somewhat restrictive and then (in the words, perhaps, of Grannie S) I bethought myself and approved the veto.
Imagine:
This bench has been paid for - and to celebrate the life of - Joe Doak (affectionately known as "Adolf") by his fellow-members of The Greater Britain. And as a tribute to his ceaseless struggle to send all non-Brits, now resident in this Sceptered Isle, back to the hell-holes whence they came.
Or:
X is not yet dead but we live in hopes. This sturdy bench symbolises the concept of national stability which he has always ignored up to now and, of which, we cannot imagine his espousal in the future, either side of the grave.
Would have come up with that observation on being faced with The Sistine Chapel?
ReplyDeleteJP - I agree about the interpretation of art you mention using the word art in its widest sense.
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RR - Just phoned the doc as I intended and as you offered encouragement. It seems the guy I saw is no longer available. The only way to get a call back is to be put on the URGRNT list and after some haggling it was agreed I could do that so I now await a call. Of course that will be from a new doctor who I will not have met and who will only have the notes to refer to, and I will also be restricted to the limitations of a phone call rather than a face to face.