Stroke

I’M SITTING on the trolley-bed in the Accident & Emergency department of Lancaster hospital, awaiting the ministrations of the medics, and I’m wondering to myself if, now that I’m getting older, I can expect more of the same of this type of experience.

I suppose it’s inevitable, really.

It begins last night. I am viewing the late movie on the box, when suddenly my foot begins to tingle with what I take to be pins and needles. It quickly spreads to the rest of my leg – a kind of tingling numbness – from foot to upper leg.

I try to walk it off, but already it’s clear this is something very different.

I wonder weather to wake My Good Lady, but decide against it – no sense in disturbing her for what I hope might still be nothing. Maybe by tomorrow it might be back to normal…

In fact it isn’t, it's worse. The tingling feeling has actually spread to my left hand. I can prevaricate no longer. I get up and as gently as I can I tell MGL that I think I’ve suffered a stroke.

She immediately rings NHS Direct, and they soon dispatch a paramedic unit to check me over.

They aren’t absolutely sure, but they think I should be taken to the A&E unit of the hospital, to be more thoroughly examined.

It’s the beginning of a very long day, of being hooked up to monitors and of being generally scanned and probed and x-rayed, with long, long spells of tedium in between during which nothing seems to be happening.

Finally, finally! – the result that I’ve now steeled myself to expect: it is indeed a stroke, albeit a mini one, and with some luck, the symptoms might clear up completely. On the other hand, maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see.

After spending nearly nine hours in the place – with only a sandwich and a belated cup of tea by way of refreshment – my discharge paper is drawn up and I’m allowed to go home.

I have to go back on Monday for further scans, and the boring part is that I’m not allowed to drive for twenty-eight days in case I have a sudden further attack – a common occurrence, it seems.

A friend comes and collects us and takes us home, and also provides us with some homemade vegetable soup and a piece of shepherd’s pie – both of which we devour as if we hadn’t eaten for a week!

LATER: I’m please to note that already some of the numbness has begun to fade and that I’m no longer walking about like lame duck. Here’s hoping for the best, fingers crossed!

Relief, at last

WELL, IT’S all over bar the shouting. The bathroom, I mean.

And, lord, what job it’s been! I thought having a new kitchen installed was going to be an upheaval, but that was as nothing compared to the bathroom!

The floor alone took four days to lay, and the ceiling had to be done twice.

But when the fitter finally departed, there was our gleaming new shower-room, ready for the use of…

The OT even came today, and prescribed a perching stool for My Good Lady – we duly went off this afternoon and collected it.

She can now look forward to her first shower – and I can affirm that it is like a semi-religious experience!

There are just the Venetian blinds to be fitted at the window, and of course the small matter of payment…

But it’s done! Complete! Finished!

Oh, the sheer overwhelming relief that that thought brings…

Cyprus wine

WE TAKE in a delivery of wine today, to stock up on our sadly depleted cellar – actually, the garage.

They are quite a hotch potch of different styles and grape varieties, from the fruity excitement of the New World to the sophistication of the Rhône Valley.

But the one thing we don’t have is anything from Cyprus – which seems a rather odd omission when you think how much is coming in from Eastern Europe these days.

Yet for centuries, Cyprus wines were famous; while as for their sherry - my parents always had a Christmas bottle of Emva Cream on the sideboard…

During our holiday there, My Good Lady and I visited the Cyprus Museum of Wine, just outside Limossol, to learn (and to sample) something of the island’s wines.

The main red grape, we discovered, is Mavro, producing a surprisingly light, softly tannic and fruity red, while the white grape, Xinisetri, makes for a rather lovely and refreshing white, quite a change from the ubiquitous Chardonnays and Sauvignon blancs that you find almost everywhere.

I must say we developed a bit of a taste for Xinisteri.

The third wine we tasted was the sweet red, Commandaria – a bottle of which we brought back from the duty free shop at Paphos airport. It makes for a delightful aperitif or as an after-dinner tot to go with the coffee.

Cyprus wines seem to have fallen into disfavour in recent years and I think this is rather a pity – they really are something a little different.

Not sorry

IT’S BEEN ONE of our odder holidays.

For nearly a week, Cyprus was hit by some of the worst weather in living memory – with snow flurries in Larnaca and Paphos, with torrential downpours that turned major roads into fast flowing rivers, and with bitingly cold gales that howled around us continually.

So, our holiday consisted of eating a lot and sleeping a lot. And maybe that’s just what we needed.

We did get out some of the time, trying to dodge the worst of the weather; I even managed to get some sunburn when I fell asleep in a chair on one of brighter days.

But still, overall, I’d have to say that, as holidays go, this one was mixed.

Maybe the most exciting day was when we drove over the snowy Troodos Mountains to Cedar Valley and the famous Kykkos monastery, then around, under the shoulder of Mount Olympos, to the mining village of Kaminaria and to see the Venetian bridges at Treis Elies – altogether a journey of well over a hundred kilometres, much of it over winding, mountain roads.

Quite an exhilarating experience!

But still, we’re not sorry to be home…