Sunday 3 February 2019

Sunday morning

This is positively the last time I shall write this post - I got to the last sentence last evening, pressed the wrong key and, despite having saved each paragraph, lost  the lot.  (my son this morning tells me that cntrl/undo on a right click might have got it back, so shall try in future).   I have a condition called Benign Essential Tremor, which is inherited but, although something in the brain, is quite harmless except it means drinking a full cup of tea can be quite an effort.   My hands shake and it gets worse if I am under any kind of pressure or in any case towards evening.   It can occur anywhere - in my case hands.   Interestingly the actress Katharine Hepburn - for any of you old enough to remember her - had it in her head and neck from a very young age.   If you see old films of her you will see that she always had slight difficulty in keeping her head still.

I have just typed it all again this morning, pressed the wrong key right at the end again and lost it again.   So here goes with once more into the breach. 

 A couple of days of incarceration because of the snow and I have a severe case of cabin fever.   There is no doubt about it I need to see and talk to other people.   Luckily I do live where there is plenty going on just outside the window - dogs being walked, friends walking past, plenty of cars - so it is not like living at the farm where I saw no one unless they made a particular effort to come.
So yesterday I got out - thanks to friend W, who has a four wheel drive vehicle and came down my road to collect Tess and I for the village coffee morning.   Tess always enjoys it because she gets a plain biscuit (never chocolate) from the biscuit plate on each table and then various 'doggy ' people there have treats in their pockets and she soon susses them out.   I enjoy it for two reasons.   First of all I meet the villagers who I rarely see these days as I now live in the nearby town - many are newcomers to the village and it is nice to meet them.   Secondly, A, who helps to run the coffee morning, makes and sells delicious turkey lasagne and always saves me two indiviual trays which I can then freeze when I get home.   It is always delicious and each tray makes a nice lunch for me.

As W and I had missed our usual Friday lunch out we decided that we would go to our usual Friday restaurant (Tennants Auction House in Leyburn) for lunch (sausage and musard seed mash and a glass of red wine) - very enjoyable as it always is.
Home again friend H next door came round for a cup of tea and then, just before the hard frost came down again, Tess and I took a careful, short walk round the estate.   So all in all I met and chatted to plenty of folk yesterday.   Today of course it is our usual Sunday lunch - all four of us - salmon for me I think.

My son and his wife were all set to go off last evening to their monthly poetry and music evening in Richmond, where poets and musicians who enjoy performing their own music play and read for one another.   The roads were icy and pretty treacherous and I worried that they might have problems - but he rang me to say the roads were well-treated and they had arrived safely.  If you would like to read the poem he wrote and read go to his post.   It is on my side bar (made out of words) and you can read it there.

Today it is out to our usual Sunday lunch venue with the usual three friends - C is fully recovered from her spell in hospital I am pleased to say.  Salmon for me today methinks.   Well, it is now 9.15 - so I think shower, warm coat, walk Tess and then do the Guardian crossword and it will be time to go out.   The sun is up and the snow is set to go as there is no frost forecast for tonight - it should be around three degrees here, so that is a relief.   Still time for much more wintry weather before Spring of course but at least a little respite.   Pansies in the front tubs, where they face South, are already back to normal as the sun has quickly cleared away the frost and snow but the polyanthus in the back garden still lay under four inches of snow.   It is supposed to be keeping them warm but I shall be happy for confirmation that they have survived the onslaught.





23 comments:

Heather said...

That used to happen to me sometimes when I was trying to do a particularly long post with photos and text for an online course I did a few years back. So infuriating.
Glad you were rescued from your cabin fever in such a lovely friendly chatty way and I hope you enjoy your lunch out today.
I also hope your lovely early flowers survive the cold. A good thing they are such tough little things.
We have partially thawed but lingering snow here, a very hard frost this morning but the pavements should be OK when I venture out for a newspaper and more milk - just in case.

Sackerson said...

Thank you for the plug!

On the subject we were talking about and in the interests of balance:

Article on Venezuela

Sue in Suffolk said...

Hope you have a lovely lunch. sunny here but still very cold and frosty

Derek Faulkner said...

Not having suffered the snow like everybody else, after a hard frost this morning we have blue skies and an increasingly warm sun so the roads are all nice and dry. The first few lambs were present on the marsh this morning in the frost. Although the main body of lambs aren't due for another month these are the result of a ram getting out before it was supposed to.

Mary said...

I know nothing about the technicalities of preparing an item for a blog, so feel free to ignore this, but wonder if it is possible to type a post in something like Word and then copy and paste it into the blog format. At least that way, if you lost it while trying to post, you'd still have a copy of the draft on your computer. Again, I don't know if this is technically possible, but just a thought. Losing a post, not once but twice, must be absolutely maddening.

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

I have also hit a wrong key and lost work. I'm quite certain a woman I used to work with has the same condition you describe. At first I worried that it might be Parkinsons disease, but she is still perfectly active and vibrant (retired now), so I'm thinking she shares your condition. I think your situation, living with lots of people around you, is perfect, and what I would like to aim for in the future. -Jenn

Sue said...

Ctrl Z is a useful key stroke for getting stuff back that you have deleted. Happens to us all!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Sackerson - I seem to have stirred up a can of worms. Wish I had never asked.
Derek - there is always a ram gets out somewhere.
Jenn - I understand that Parkinson's never starts with the hand tremor. BET is quite common and does run in families. My father]s hands shook as he aged, so did my sisters and now my niece is beginning to notice it.

Sue - I always use Cntrl Z but it doesn't always work.

Thanks every one for your contribution.

Joanne Noragon said...

I have acquired a tremor. I cannot hold my camera still, for instance. This happened as a result of smashing my head in that bus accident. I got over not being able to photograph birds, but not easily.

Anonymous said...

So glad that you managed to type this post again. It's a really interesting one as usual Pat.
We must try Tennants for a meal next time we come to Leyburn. It would be lovely if you could come too!
Sue

Janice said...

It's so annoying when you loose work after spending so much time on it. Sounds like you've been out for some lovely meals with good company. We are not venturing out al all. It is -29C with a windchill of -45C. Same tomorrow!

angryparsnip said...

Nice that you have some warmer (?) weather. You always have the best places to visit and have lunch at.
I have lost most of the use in my hands, arms because of the arthritis and fibromyalgia. I am very careful now when handling cups, dishes, food almost everything. Plus I can only use the phone camera anymore. Cameras are to heave to lift for anytime.
I hope your tremores do not get worse.

cheers, parsnip

Red said...

Your computer challenges remind me of my wife who just got off the computer after sending her message before it was finished...three times. I would love to live on your farm. I like being alone!

Anne Brew said...

Your polyanthus should be ok. They must be the prettiest yet toughest flower of all!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Anne - you are quite right. WhenI came home after lunch, all the polyanthus are fully in bloom and pushing out of the snow.
Red - I quite like my own company but not for too long. On a farm there is always something going on and people about but once my darling farmer died it was very lonely.
Gayle - sorry to hear that you have both arthritis and fibromyalgia - what an awful combination and probably worse in heat I would have thought.
Sue - I will indeed meet you at Tennants when you next come. I see the lady from the guesthouse where you stay almost every week as she also comes to the Golf Club where we eat. We often speak of you.
Joanne - I do hope your tremor doesn't get any worse, you have enough things to put up with without anything else.

Thanks everyone. See you tomorrow.

Alphie Soup said...

Ah, the vagaries of blog publishing. I use my phone for reading blogs and commenting - I have often lost comments before publishing. It's annoying when it fails.
I always enjoy your son's poetry and I aim to read the article on Venezuela.
And yes, I do remember Katherine Hepburn.
Alphie

Tom Stephenson said...

Oh, poor Weave. My surrogate son-in-law has developed Parkinson's and holding a pint is a bit of a tremble for him. Our snow will disappear tonight I think.

Ruth said...

I truly empathize with your essential tremor. My husband has it and I see how very much it can limit you. He had such gifted hands as a jack of all trades, mostly a mechanic, very adept at welding, etc. Slowly he had to give it all up, can't write a check anymore. I pray that I'll live long enough to be here to help him as long as he needs me. He never complains, and doesn't seem upset when his coffee sloshes out of the cup in a restaurant, just takes it all in stride. You have to! There's nothing else you can do. You are a wonderful inspiration to anyone - I admire your courage and determination to stay active and involved.

I hadn't read your son's poetry before - oh my! I especially love the barn poems. He's blessed with quite a talent. Could be inherited from someone we all know and love?

Sue said...

I lost my post a few times and now I try to remember to hit "save" every once in a while. It saves the post as a draft without publishing it, and you can go back to the last saved version if you lose your post. Don't know if that function is available to you. The trick is remembering to save it often when writing.

Cro Magnon said...

Last week it rained a lot here, and I was housebound. I watched 'The Wartime Farm' on YouTube, which I'd not seen before. I was totally glued to it. There's an advantage to everything; even rain.

Gwil W said...

I'm always losing my telephone messages. Or I'm sending them before I've finished them. I'll be half way through one and it'll fly away somewhere. Very annoying I do agree. I think the ends of my typing fingers must to be too big for those little electronic squares. I notice some people use a thing like a pencil and some young ladies have extra long thin fingernails and type at a rate so fast I can't imagine how they do it.

Sackerson said...

This is a very good article, too:
Hugo Chavez.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Sue whatever key it is I accidentally hit it wipes out save too because I always hit save every paragraph anyway.

Thanks everyone.