Exercise Exciting???

I had an appointment at the physiotherapist today. I was expecting a bit of bending, exercises and a flea in the ear for not doing enough since my first visit (is it possible to kick your own butt?). Instead, I had one of the most interesting two hour conversations I've had for a while. Yes, I know, quite a statement when you consider how I do love to talk!

There are many changes under way within the NHS, some of which give me great concern, but I am loving recent moves to offer more community-based self-help courses with a multi-disciplinary approach. Prior to my back exploding, I practised Iyengar or Sivananda yoga most days. I was banned by my surgeon and osteopath for year before they both declared they'd made a mistake as I'd stiffened up somewhat (no sh*t Sherlock!). I have struggled since to get back into it even though I know my body and mind love it.

This past couple of months has finally seen me getting some practical help in dealing with my back, depression, and singular inability to get flexing. One Talking Therapy course later and I'm booked on to another that fuses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with meditation, visualisation, and breathing techniques taken from Eastern medical traditions. Today my physiotherapist is referring me to another that fuses traditional physiotherapy with CBT. The first is to help me maintain my recovering depressive state and the later to encourage me to manage my own pain better.

These therapies are no fluffy, pseudo-science based nonsense but soundly based on recent scientific studies that support what Yogis, Tai Chi and Qi Gong folk have understood for centuries. Namely that the mind has a profound effect on the biochemistry of one's body. My degree is in Life Sciences so I love 'getting under the bonnet' so to speak and anticipate seeing myself as my own experiment.

Watch this space as I grumble about the 'no pain, no gain' involved in these courses!


My physiotherapist has made several reference recommendations that I thought I would share :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671033972/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0980358809/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=A14N8KU5L9NGDX
http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/
http://www.britishpainsociety.org/

New Definitions

I was watching the BBC News this evening when I noted a new definition of the word "Freedom" (or, maybe, "Democracy") arising from the Libyan "Arab Spring". Namely, the ability to write rude messages on a public wall in nail varnish without penalty.

Britain's Riots.

There's a police shooting incident. A protest march is arranged before the facts are known. A minority start trouble on the streets of London. What happens next is shocking to the 'average Joe'. Violence flames, seemingly at random, across central London and soon spreads to other major cities throughout the United Kingdom.

I watch the news, sickened, appalled and ranting. Not at the pictures however, but at the sound of the apologists talking about 'poverty' and 'boredom' and about young people being left without hope. In fact, if I hear one more excuse for those who have left their homes with the express intent of going on the rob "for a laugh" and I think I will projectile vomit!

Shop owners are not 'rich' and if you were truly poor, you'd be stealing food, basic clothing, and the materials needed to build your own shelter. Are you living in a third world style ghetto with buildings made of corrugated tin and cardboard? Are you living with open sewers passing by your front door? Do you have to pick over a rubbish heap looking for things you can sell in order to buy a handful of rice? No? Well, then you are not poor nor 'hard done by'.

As you watch your stolen television, do you see people living under such conditions taking apart their own communities because they are bored and without hope? No, what you see are people working as many hours a day that they can with the aim of lifting themselves out of the gutter.

The violence we have been seeing over the last few days is criminal and motivated by greed. It is the result of a society that has married materialism to a lack of personal responsibility. That people are capable of being surprised by it is the most shocking thing of all.

No, 'they' won't be able to claim on 'their' insurance as that does not cover damage caused by civil unrest. So, the net effect of your greed is simply to reduce your own environment still further. What are you going to do when there's nothing left to destroy?

How do we 'mend' Britain? Perhaps if the powers that be reassured parents, schools, and adults in general that instilling the notion that poor behaviour has consequences won't lead to them being treated as if they'd committed a mass human rights violation would be a damn good start?

The Unpopular Tourist

Many, many years ago, in my teens, we had a family holiday in Portugal. My father hired a local to take us out for the day. He teased my younger brother all day, making 'donkey ears' at him and at many of the black-clad women we passed as we drove through teeny villages with even teenier roads.

Amongst other places, he took us to a modern church to show us the guarded tomb of one of Portugal's great and good (we never did find out who). Upon leaving, our driver collapsed in tears of laughter over the bonnet of his car. One by one, we spotted an ancient old man carrying a wicker basket with grey smoke pouring out of it.

Unsurprisingly, this man got increasingly annoyed as we all failed to hold back our less than sympathetic gales of laughter. Our driver eventually managed to let him know what was going on. He up-ended the contents of his bag and proceeded to tap dance on them to put out the flames. It didn't help any that he was wearing T-shirt, Bermuda style khaki shorts and 'Desert Welly' sandals. Needless to say, we were less than useless on the help front!

Walking the Cat

My former home, a flat, was located on an inner city square surrounded by traffic. Consequently I never let my mad tom cat, Maximus, out on his own. We would go for a walk together, most often on a sunny day when the square was full of people, including the occasional village drunk or two...

"Oi, Missus, did you know you've got a cat on that lead?"

Looking down, then at the drunk, at his mate, back down, back to drunk 1, and repeating

"Bugger, what the bloody hell have I done with the damn Alsation?"

Drunk 1 exits confused 

Drunk 2 falls back into the flowers

The Pink and Hard

One otherwise unremarkable summer's evening in a bar about ten years ago saw a cocktail created in my honour. 

Take a chilled tall glass

Sugar frost the rim

Add equal measures of Vodka and Campari

Add crushed ice

Top up with pink grapefruit juice 

Add a splash of fresh lime juice

Serve!

Salute!

What a morning!

I saw a man fall from my neighbour's roof this morning, just 20 feet or so from my back door. Thankfully, I only heard him land with a heavy, wet thud. He was still alive when the ambulance departed.

I only became aware of what was going on once I got back from my morning school run. Apparently he had been on the row of terraces from about 1am. He walked along the whole row of terraces, throwing tiles down at people on the ground and at the firemen trying to rescue him. The neighbour whose roof he fell from is missing several tiles and has a hole in her flat roof from the debris that fell on it. I have broken terracotta shards in my back garden.

At the peak, there were three fire tenders on scene, including a 'snorkle', several police cars and a couple of ambulances.

I'm glad my next door neighbour's young children were blithely unaware of what was going on, much to their parents' relief.

Of course, his falling is not the end of it. The police scene of crime officers have just photographed the damage he caused and the local press have been out interviewing. My house has only just stopped vibrating from the police helicopter.

Perhaps it's the effects of too many years commuting to London for my work in the past, suffering delays from other suicide attempts, perhaps the three attempts made from the office windows at my first job, but I can only feel a little stressed and somewhat annoyed at him. This despite being a long term sufferer of depression myself. It's a sad reflection but an honest one.