Patrick has found an important challenge to overcome
I’m looking for a challenge
I need a challenge to overcome in my life. Lockdown has been a double-edged weapon for me. Watching the garden grow and evolve over the last three or four months has given me enormous pleasure. This garden project will last for the rest of the year. Finding the energy to take exercise was the problem.
Lock down announced in March
Bags of energy explains my success with sitting down gardening and posting a blog on this website every week. Plans and ideas were bursting out of my head. I was baking cakes. Photographs of the flowers in the garden , sunshine from dawn till dusk and despite self-imposed isolation I felt excited and full of energy. The novelty has now worn off.
Where did all the traffic go
Everyone was working from home, or so it seemed. No one was going anywhere, and streets were traffic free. Only shops selling food were open so no retail therapy on the High Street, it had all gone online. No traffic meant no sign of any traffic wardens either.
No road traffic here
Middle of May
Day by day the traffic on the roads increased but the car parks were still empty
A new normal after Covid begins to enter life in this town. There are always queues outside the shops that could open. Pubs were shut, and restaurants were only open for takeaway meals. No shop windows to provide retail therapy. People donned face masks when they went into shops but hardly anyone wore them on the streets.
I was busy achieving nothing
By now my life had settled into a tedious routine, My brain felt as if it was going soft and squidgy. I needed a new challenge to overcome. I must stop me wallowing in my MS and drowning in social media. Yes, MS is a life changing illness in more ways than I ever imagined possible, but life must continue. I lurched into comfort eating and lost the energy and motivation to exercise during May. Could there be a thread here?
Challenge to overcome
I needed to emerge from this trench of laziness and kick start my life. Sudoku puzzles are good way to stretch the mind. Initially a total failure did it not defeat me and I have graduated from ‘Easy’ to ‘Medium’ standard and I’m getting some of them right, next challenge is ‘Difficult’ 🙂 . It is gratifying to know my MS addled brain can still function 🙂 🙂 .
Me and The Wife started playing board games but I must find a strategy to start winning a few. I used to beat her regularly so this is another project.
July
Pubs, restaurants, and non-essential shops can now open. When I venture into town, life looks as if it is returning to a new normal, but it is very different to the old normal.
Challenge to overcome
The whole world is in a state of disbelief coupled with pain and grief. It is not just the thousands of souls destroyed by Covid. It is the lost livelihoods, lost businesses, lost pastimes, lost freedoms and lost dreams that are now happening. Restoring confidence will be a challenge.
My MS and the growing number of problems are with me for life. I must not allow grief to overwhelm me. Life will improve, just very different challenges to overcome.
Associated posts
I can now see light at the end of the tunnel
.
.
.
.
.
Physically disabled in Athens a survival guide
.
.
.
.
.
July 2020
Hi Patrick have been reading your blogs for a while now,
They have made me realize I am not alone with a problem
I had bowel cancer confirmed last year have had an ileostomy
I am fortunate that it was discovered while still operable it is
possible it can be reversed one day. You have given me the
Push to stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with life
even with its limits. Charlie
Hello Charles,
I’m sorry to hear about the cancer and now having an ileostomy. Fingers cross that the procedure can be reversed. I have a very positive attitude to life with MS. At this stage it is no walk in the park but even so I know there are people worse off then me and that piece of knowledge keeps me going. I need projects to keep me focused and my mind off the the wretched disease.