Music to my ears...

...that's all music. Well, except rap, which is actually a four letter word starting with a capital C.

Most of you who know me, and those that have read this blog, will know that music plays a large part in my life.

It doesn't matter where you are, what you're doing, what you're experiencing, who you're with, who you want to be with, who you used to be with, even who YOU are, there will be a song that will perfectly describe you or any of the emotions you are going, or have been, through. The song probably won't come to you at that precise moment, but even after some time a song will play that you'll think, "That song reminds me of xxxxx".

Music may not always bring good memories either. Too many of us have gone through heartbreaking times, but still a song will come on and remind us of a particular person, place or event. Music in all its forms, is emotional. Music can be happy or sad, or bring on an emotional response in memory of a good or bad experience, person, place, etc. And the emotions that surface hearing that song are sometimes healthy, remind us of things, people or experiences we had forgotten recently.

Music may bring us out of a funk that we'd settled inadvertently into. Only when a particular "happy place" song comes on, we realise we'd taken a bit of a slump that we need to drag ourselves out of.

My personal collection ranges from the old classics, Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninov and those lads, through all genres (yes, even (c)rap though I seldom listen to that) to the hardest of metal rock you can think of, like Disturbed, System of a Down, Rob Zombie, just to name a few. There is a song for every possible emotion I could have, or have had.

Some music sticks with you through the years, music that you were either influenced by a parent, or you heard in your teenage years with friends, music by bands that you saw play live on stage. Some music gets reintroduced at a later point in life that you ignored or poo-poo'ed when you were younger that you come back to in later years and admit to yourself that it is actually pretty damn good music and you should have listened to more of it at the time instead or rubbishing it straight away. Maturity will do that for you as well.

Other music will catch your ear as you grow up, through various ways and influences: radio, TV, social media (probably the biggest influence these days). I've picked up on some music through the intros to TV series, movie soundtracks, even adverts.

And biggest point of all, music is personal. It doesn't matter what others think of your choice of music. Or, if it does, it shouldn't. Music is like your personality, it is yours. It adds to what makes you, you. And bugger anybody that says otherwise. If people turn their nose up at your playlist or choice of song, that's their problem, not yours. The song was/is your experience. Yes, you may change your playlist when you have friends over for dinner or a social event to suit the event, but you will always go back to the music that is your current biggest influence. If you don't, you're not being honest with yourself.

Sitting here, I've gone through three different genres of music already, purely because I've started off with one (Duran Duran, New Wave music), to Dusty Springfield (60's female vocal) and am now listening to Stone Temple Pilots (grunge). It's one of those days when you say to yourself "Okay, scroll down the playlist five times and whatever is on screen, play it". Kinda like the YouTube rabbit hole of music videos.

If I had to list some of my recent music choices, and why I chose them, they would include the following:

Savannah Pope (He Sees Me) - A feelgood song, but the emotion behind her being accepted by him for what she is. On top of that, she has a great voice. Those notes she hits are amazing.

Talk Talk (It's my Life) - See above description of music being personal. And New Wave was part of my late teen years.

Tears for Fears (Advice for the Young at Heart) - Rushing into relationships. A weakness of mine? Certainly in my youth.

B52s (Love Shack) - My happy song. Instantly takes me to a happy place.

Shinedown (Get Up) - When I'm in a funk, this one sorts me out. It screams "Get out of it. There's more to life than what's happening now. This is temporary."

30 Seconds to Mars (A Beautiful Lie) - Memory of an event that happened 25yrs ago. "M" didn't like a painting I had which depicted prancing horses, so she gave it (supposedly) to a young girl she knew that had her own pony. She, however, told me a beautiful lie to cover up her getting rid of the painting. Needless to say, I made her get it back. I still have it.

A Flock of Seagulls (I Ran) - Another New Wave influence. Great dance track.

Alphaville (A Victory of Love) - New Wave influence, but a great track that starts off slowly and crashes into a great beat.

Alterbridge (Fable of the Silent Son) - "M" introduced me to these guys, the remnants of Creed after they split up. Possibly better than Creed, due to Myles Kennedy's influence and great vocals.

Bachman Turner Overdrive (Not Fragile) - Teenage years influence, when rock was giving way to a different type of rock. Along with Bad Company, Deep Purple, Status Quo, Thin Lizzy, to name a few.

Basia (Cruising for Bruising) - A memory of a lover. She'll know who she is........

Beach Boys (Surfin USA) - Memories of my days spent in the salt water, usually two hours at a time. Go to nightshift, 7am cycle to North Beach (Durban), surf two hours, go home, eat, sleep, repeat.....good times.

Beethoven (Overture Leonore No3 C-major) - Memories of peaceful Sunday mornings.

Beth Hart (Get Your Shit Together) - Title says it all... Came across this version while doing the YT-rabbit-hole thing. The raunchiness of Beth's voice is gripping and Joe Bonamassa on guitar is brilliant.

Big Country (In a Big Country) - Memories of Scotland.

To be continued...... I've only just scraped the surface (only just started on B) and there are just too many tracks to list in one posting...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

I think we all want this...

Who wouldn't, because then you would know you've done your bit and nothing more could have been expected of you...

Look after yourselves out there, folks... 

Today was a good day...

For the first time in three weeks, I got on a bicycle. On purpose.

With the ribs having been less sore than the last couple of weeks, I decided to wake up with the sparrow fart this morning and join the road bike crew for a Speedsnake session on the Swartvlei road. This session is usually done on a Tuesday, but it was raining yesterday morning so it was postponed to today.

I just wanted to see if I could comfortably ride a bike but especially the road bike because there is no suspension on those bikes, unlike the dual suspension on the mountain bike. If the ribs hurt too much on the ride, I could always turn around and abort the ride.

Leaving the driveway in the very early morning light, bike lights lighting my way down to the starting point, I was surprised to find only a small niggle on the "floating rib". The back side ribs weren't complaining at all. Things were looking up, so I continued to meet up with the crew.

Having not seen me for a while, many were surprised I was there as it is only three weeks since the injuries, but being the great bunch of people they are, welcomed me back and asked after my health.

We set off at a pace faster than usual, then settled into a peleton formation for the couple of km's on the highway, before turning off onto the Swartvlei road.

At the beach parking area, my Mr Miyagi took the customary group photo for posting on the cycling group Whatsapp chat page later.

A quick digression...."my Mr Miyagi" is my very good friend who got me interested in cycling, despite my vowing never to do so when we lived in Cape Town. He has been cycling for many years and, even in his early 70s is still one of the strongest riders here. I use the term Mr Miyagi in the fondest of terms as he is my mentor (in life, as well as cycling) just as the youngster had his Mr Miyagi in the old film, Karate Kid. He has taught me most of what I know and do in riding a bike, and I can definitively say I have learned from one of the best.

Back to the ride...

We cruised up and down the flat road, doing about a half dozen laps, then headed up the hill on the highway for a short hill climb before heading back to our usual coffee stop at a local eatery.

I was very happy with my ride, especially as I haven't ridden for three weeks, and didn't feel too tired at the end of it once I got home up the last hill.

So guess where I'll be heading at 06h15 tomorrow morning... Yep, tomorrow being Thursday is also road bike day, so I'll be out there again.

As much as I needed, and enjoyed, the time off the bikes, it was damn good to be back on the road again today...

Look after yourselves out there, folks... 

Big Brother is definitely watching...

Ever since I started writing my blog again and posting links to the articles on my FB feed, I've started getting all sort of sentimental images and sayings, even poetry (much of which I don't mind), coming up on my FB feed, like something (it's certainly not "someone") out there is reading/analysing whatever I post, deciding I need a bit of mental adjustment and has started making all these pages visible to me.

In many cases, they can be a bit depressing, but some are welcome and help my thought processes. It's just a bit disconcerting that Big Brother is trying to influence me without being asked...

Here are some examples:

Ok, that's enough. All those images were literally within a couple of spins of my mouse wheel. I think you see my point.

Look out, folks, Big Brother AI is definitely watching...

Make a new life for yourself, they said...

That is such a tough line to think about, let alone act on.

As many of you know, after 25yrs together, my M was admitted to a local care facility, already two months ago to the day, because of her Alzheimers/dementia.

I was told by a few people, some very close friends, and even the manager at the care facility that I now need to go out and create a new life for myself, that I need to move on. That's all fine and well and easy for them to say, but it is a mammoth task.

For one, I have responsibilities. They extend, firstly and foremostly, to M. She is still with us, is still my wife, is still a part of my life albeit in a very different context. She requires care on a daily basis, supplied by the carers. She also requires care going into the future if something terminal should happen to me. I'm only a person in an ageing body and it could desert me at any time, one never knows, so I've made financial arrangements for her continued care.

Next, I have mom and nephew (often referred to by myself as the Nephewmonster) also living with me. They too require daily care, but for different reasons. Nephew is only 11yrs old and growing fast, but could still be around for a few more years until he makes his own way out into the world. Mom is getting frail and is 81yrs old, cannot do too much before her COPD kicks in and takes the breath out of her.

Lastly, I have a responsibility to myself. I'm pretty much chief-cook-and-bottlewasher around the house for the three of us, but when I'm not cracking ribs passing bicycles over gates or rescuing upturned tortoises, I need to look after myself mentally and physically. Without me being in as good a condition as I can keep myself in, I run the risk of incapacitation, or worse, which could be catastrophic for my "lodgers".

So, how does one "make a new life" for oneself?

As the author, and in my opinion, it has to be done on physical and mental levels.

The physical side is, in my case, relatively easy. I walk and cycle when I can. Since being off the bikes with the sore ribs, I've walked an average of 10km a day. Before I hurt the ribs, I was cycling anywhere up to, and sometimes over, 250km a week. I feel great, and am the lightest and fittest I've been in about 20yrs. I think I've got the physical side sorted out (if I stay away from gates and tortoises). As an aside, I got back on a bike today for the first time in three weeks...woohoo...

The mental side is a bit trickier. There are so many levels of mental wrestling I have to go through in my situation.

The biggest challenge, still, is the guilt I feel whenever I leave M after a visit. I don't know how long that will last, or if it will even go away. I suspect it might last until some time after she forgets who I am or what my name is, because then I will know she is definitely not herself anymore, not mine anymore.

The next biggest challenge, I feel, is the loneliness, particularly at night when I turn over onto my left side in bed and see the empty space where M used to be. During the day is okay because I'm active in some form or other for most of it, but it hits home at night. Sometimes I'm okay with being alone, others not so much. I'm guessing that's because M has been there for 25yrs and now I have a hollow spot in her place. I don't mind my own company for the most part, but there comes a time when a bit of conversation or companionship would be comforting. Which leaves me with a conundrum...

People tell me (even encourage me) to go out and seek companionship, perhaps even a relationship. Do you see where I'm going with this?

If you don't, do you remember what marriage vows are, what they say about "in sickness and health"? Right. Now we're on the same page, and there's my conundrum. How do I go out and engage in new companionship or a relationship, without another layer of guilt slapped on top of the current?

Yes, I know it may be something I "just" have to deal with, something to put my "big girl panties on" for, should the time arise. Maybe I just need to believe that, under the circumstances, it's okay to be doing this, that it is justified, maybe even that it's what M would want that I be happy? (That's such a fuckin' cliche...)

Maybe I just need to say "fuck it" and go with the flow, see where whatever it is takes me and deal with the issues as I go along, be honest with myself and the other person/s involved.

So, yeah, go out and make a new life for yourself, indeed... 😵

FFS...people are going to read the blog posts of the last couple of weeks and start spinning their index fingers around next to their temples in an indication of "Man, this guy's lost it...cuckoo". I can assure you, folks, I'm really okay. I'm just letting my keyboard diarrhoea out, venting thoughts, emotions.

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Proud Uncle...that's me...

 Why, what have you done, you might ask. Not that much, actually. Just given a sad young lad the tools to create a new image of, and for, himself.

I could say that I've done this, or that, even embellish a few things to make me look like a hero, when in reality, he has done most of it himself.

True, I've done things like get him out of the house and away from the mind-numbing mostly PG18-rated video games my brother bought for his Xbox (though he still has a couple of age-appropriate games on his tablet) and the sedentary life he was immersed in because of them. I've changed, no, I've overhauled his diet from the junk food and crap he had been fed at home to healthy, balanced, home-cooked meals. I've tried, and succeeded in part measure, to instil in him a sense of discipline and respect for himself and his circle of friends and family (there's still some work to be done there). I've tried to be friend, confidant, uncle, and dare I say it, a parent to him.

Some will know, but for those that don't, I'm referring to my nephew (in keeping with tradition, I'll refer to him as N).

For someone so young (currently 11yrs old) N has had a tough life so far. His mother deserted him and my brother about 8yrs ago and moved back to Cape Town (that's another tale of misery altogether). She has seen him, I believe, exactly once in that time. She has never asked, nor made the effort, to see him in the last 19mths that he has been with me. Legally, I can't stop her seeing him, but I would resist it with whatever means I needed. She is not a nice person.

For a few years, my brother took care of N as best he saw fit, but which in the end, contributed to where the lad ended up when I went to collect him on 1st September 2023. The reason I had to do so was because my brother took a step off a high ladder and took his own life and deserted the boy too.

I spent a week or so sorting out my brothers affairs in the little KZN town where they lived. He left no Will, just a texted Whatsapp message to myself with some information and instructions and justifying why he had done it. My brother and I never really saw eye-to-eye, in fact he threatened to kill me on more than one occasion, and his suicide left me with even less good to say about him not that there would have been much to start with (sorry mum, I know you're going to read this, but that's how it is).

My brother forgot that with his suicide things would be simpler for only himself. Some people say it takes bravery to commit suicide, but I say it is cowardice to take the easy way out of life and your commitments, especially to your children. Everybody my brother left behind suddenly had another complexity to add to their already complex lives. Someone had to take care of his boy, so me as the eldest and closest family member, had to step up. So much for my retirement.

Back at home, we went through some major challenges with N, typical of a child who had been neglected and basically left to his own devices. My sister had the perfect word for him, "feral". He was, essentially, wild.

Fast-forward 19mths, a new home, a new school, new friends, a more settled home life, all the changes and challenges I mentioned or hinted at earlier, and the lad is a changing person. It hasn't been easy, for anyone here, but he is becoming the proverbial butterfly. The people around him have given him the tools to evolve, but he has made the greatest sacrifices in time and effort himself to make that evolution.

When he arrived to stay with me, the boy weighed 82.4kg. When he was weighed yesterday, he was down to 61kg......a massive weight loss of over 21kg!! And on top of that, he has grown in height by more than a foot. Quite remarkable.

You take a look at the "then and now" photos below and make up your own mind how remarkable it is that he has changed himself in a relatively short period. Then you will see why I am so proud of him.

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

How much sporting equipment does one need...?

 Well, as a retired consultant I would say "That depends" and it wouldn't be wrong.

Currently, to feed my cycling addiction (because that's what it's become), I have two bicycles: 1x mountain bike (MTB, for trails and gravel roads) and 1x road bike (for tar roads and serious speed).

But then what do I go and do but crack a few ribs and disable myself from riding for up to eight weeks. No, sorry, can't do that... I need my bike fix regularly, like daily. I need a bike trainer that I can keep in the house, in front of my Man Cave desk monitors where I can either play and listen to loud music while "riding" or I can have YouTube videos or movies playing for the duration.

I had a look at some of the decent trainers which are "smart trainers" and hook up to your home network and one of many online training site apps, and which control the trainer so that you feel resistance on your pedals when you are going "uphill" and you can "ride" in virtual groups or solo...all routes and pretty scenery (real life videos of the place you are "riding") visible on a computer monitor or Smart TV.

But.....they come at a cost. Quite a hefty one at that. Try a starting cost of close to ZAR10,000......many are much more expensive than that.

Nope. My pension, as decent as it is, doesn't allow for that kind of extravagance. I need another plan...

Enter the relatively cheap options in the Trojan brand of exercise equipment. Enter the even cheaper options of hundreds of people selling theirs on FB Marketplace, for whatever reasons (too many to mention, and too many to mention because I might insult some fat bastard that's just too lazy to use it).

I've been watching FBM for some time now, waiting for the right option for me. I found one today. It's an elliptical trainer that also has a seat, so I can either stand up and hold onto the long bars and get an arm workout at the same time, or I can unbolt those bars and use it as a type of exercise bicycle. It even has a computer of sorts where I can set my goal for the session (time, speed or distance). It also has a knob I can turn to adjust the tension on the flywheel making it a harder ride, thereby working muscles more vigorously.

And why did I go for that unit? Well, it came down to economics. I saw the unit advertised and thought "Hmmm, R1,500...not bad" and sent the seller a message saying I'm interested. Then I scrolled down, literally five lines, and saw the same unit (same photos in both ads), but this one is priced at R1,200... Huh?? So I sent this different seller a message too.

Within ten minutes Seller 1 pings me back and the unit is still available. I say great... I'd like to view it. It's in Mossel Bay, an hour's drive from home, but it looks in good nick and the price is good. I ask about the price and get told it is R1,200. Excellent.

I swap phone numbers with the seller, though it turns out that its actually her daughter who is selling the bike. Fine, no problem.

Then she tells me that the price is R1,000......... Huh? Okaaaayyyyy.....

I bundle the Nephewmonster into the bakkie to go for a drive (he likes the new sound system as much as I do) and off we go. An hour later, I pull up at the given address and a young, slightly overweight lady comes out to meet us. She had a baby a year ago and hasn't lost the weight gained before birth. (Well, hello, you are selling the exact piece of machinery you need to help with that, but whatever).

I give the bike a lookover, it's a bit dusty but so what, I've got cloths at home, I sit on it and give it a go and it works fine, so I tell her "Sold". She smiles, I smile, both of us are happy.

I detach the long bars and between myself and the monster, we manoeuvre the bike into the bakkie. I say to the young lady "Your mom said R1,000. Is that right?" She gets a weird look on her face and I say I have a message that shows the price from her mom, but she also phones mom to confirm what she told me...probably kakked mom out for her stupidity.

Anyway, she agrees the price is R1,000 and we conclude the deal. I think I was happier than she was. I certainly got the better deal.

So now I have another piece of sporting equipment placed in front of my desk,waiting for a quick wash and it's first use in its new home. If the pedometer on it is correct (which cannot be reset) this bike has only THREE kilometers on it!!

Hopefully I won't do damage to the ribs by using the long bars, but I could use the arm workout.

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

I think I'm going through a mid-life crisis...

Maybe....Maybe not.... I don't know...

I find myself doing a lot of stuff to do with music these days. Perhaps because it had been so quiet around the house for such a long time, but also because I find music very uplifting. Find a tune you like, listen to it. However, find a tune that you love, CRANK IT UP!!!

At the moment, on another browser tab, an old 80s track, A-Ha's "Touch Me" is blasting out of the speakers connected to the PC. Never mind mum being able to hear it downstairs (with her door closed), I'm surprised the neighbours haven't started querying on the local security WhatsApp group as to where the sound is coming from. Enjoy, people!!!

Anyway, I digress a bit...

The reason for this posting?............... I've just booked myself a weekend trip away to the Louvain Burn Arts and Music Festival.

Fuck, yeah!!

I've never been to one of these festivals and apparently they are a blast. A cultural mix of music, art, people, food, drink, and all-round socialising. For THREE DAYS!!

Why, you might ask? Well, aside from having wanted to do something like this for a long time, it's also my birthday on the 31st August and I thought I need to do something different this year.

This festival is so different they don't even have a bar or beer tent. But you are allowed to take your own drinks. Just as well. Food is available through a single food vendor and judging by the photos on the Homepage, it looks tasty and not too expensive. Fuckit, it's my birthday. I'm going all in. Or is that all out?

As for accommodation, I've booked myself a Glamping tent for the weekend. It sleeps two, but at the moment I'm going on my own.

I've also paid for a second festival ticket, in case I find someone willing/able/desirable to take along for a mutual experience.

Let me tell you, I am so amped to go to this festival I feel like a kid in a sweet shop...

If you go to the Louvain Burn webpage, give it a little while to load as it seems a bit slow, but it will give you a good idea what it's all about. There's lots of photos from past events.

Amped, I tell you....Amped...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

And in other, less interesting, news...

 ...the last week has been a mixture of happenings. As it should be, I suppose, otherwise it would be boring and totally uninteresting to my only reader...

Last week was the last few days for us at our Striders Athletics Club to finalise the last few bits and pieces for our annual Tortiose Tuff race. We had a meeting of the committee on Tuesday at the Sports Club, ironed out a few things, saw the Race Convenor's blood pressure rise just another notch or two, but generally come to the consensus that we were ready for the day. And it gave us another reason to have a couple of drinks and socialise a bit. Like that was ever a problem in Striders...

Before that, in the morning, I went for my longest (to date) recorded walk. Because I have the couple of cracked/damaged ribs, I can't go cycling (insert crying emoji here) so I do what's next best to get some exercise and whittle away a couple of hours. I hadn't intended to walk that far, but once I was out there it was a case of "ok, let's just go there..... right, let's go there next" and before I knew it, I was over 5km from home. And the thing about walking or cycling, the further you go out, the more you have to come back. Still, it was a great way to spend a couple of hours. Sedgefield lends itself to wanting to see the nature around it.

Wednesday saw me take Mum on her weekly "breakfast and shopping" outing to the local Spar. Mum doesn't get out much because of her OCPD (emphysema) as the slightest bit of physical motion gets her breathing all erratic and she struggles to walk further than a few metres. But, this being her weekly outing, she braved the ramp up to the restaurant, where we had coffees and breakfast. It's good value all round which helps. And the light shopping that mum does is good for her mobility too.

Wednesday was also our weekly Striders-Time-Trials-followed-by-copious-amounts-of-alcohol afternoon. It's a great club, jokingly referred to as "a drinking club with an athletics problem" by many of us members. A fantastic bunch of friendly people that enjoy a good drinking session, a bunch of laughs, and each others social company. We usually, and tonight was no exception, get thrown out of the club at closing time by the friendly barman. Okay, the usual closing time is 8pm, but that's Sedgefield for you, where the average age of folks is probably around 70 and almost everyone is in bed by 9pm. Still, I wouldn't choose to live anywhere else these days. Maybe one day I'll go to bed by 9pm too...

On Thursday I went for another long walk, again unintentionally. What started off as a beach walk, ended up in a bit of bundu-bashing too. Coming off the beach at the Groenvlei Beach parking area where I was going to turn around, I instead decided to carry on on the gravel road back to Lake Pleasant caravan park and, from there, back to Sedgefield. All was progressing well until I got to said caravan park. I knew there was a locked gate separating the park from the eastern end of Sedgefield, but I figured there would be a pathway around it on one or other side of the gate. Wrong. I found what looked like an overgrown path off to the left of the gate and proceeded into the bushes. About 15mins later, I'm sweating buckets (not good as I hadn't taken any water with me), the path has fizzled off to nothing more than a faint movement of the long grass and dead branches which was probably made by a big mole rat, and I'm thinking that if I didn't know where the cardinal directions were I would probably declare myself lost. By the time I crash through the growth, scraping my legs and arms in the process, about 10mins later I'm cursing myself an idiot for not just having retraced my initial steps and gone the long way round. Ah well, it was an experience and a lesson in survival too...

Friday morning was spent relaxing a little, while the housekeeper did her thing moving bits and pieces to show me she'd "cleaned" there, making a lot of noise with the vacuum cleaner and floormop. At 15h30-ish, I went round to my "Mr Miyagi", my very good friend and cycling mentor, to collect an amplifier and car speakers that I'm interested in buying from him. I want to put the amp into the bakkie to complement the door speakers, which aren't performing to their full potential and need some boost to bring them in line with the new demonic active-subwoofer. That done, I head to the Sports Club with my Barefoot Bowls team members, N&S, who are also lodgers at my friend's place.

Barefoot Bowls is a bi-annual event arranged by the lawn bowls club. Essentially, it is supposed to be for people who want to try the game, have either never played, or are not active in the game. Aside from the last two weeks, N&S have never played, I have only played in the event for the last two weeks and before that about 40-odd years ago when I was shown by my then father-out-law. Turns out, he was a good teacher. I recalled a lot of what he taught me. We practice a few minutes while our opponents get their team together, grab a beer and get ready for the game. This was the third out of the four week tournament. We had lost our first game by a single shot, and won our second by three shots. Not bad for amateurs, I thought, and we had a ton of fun with our opponents on those weeks too. This week was different.....a lot different. At the end of the game, I came off the green embarrassed for myself. I felt like a hustler. It was one of those days when I could do almost no wrong and just about every shot went where I wanted to go. It was a team effort though and we came off the green having beaten our opponents resoundingly by 15 shots, which also won us a bottle of wine each having been the second highest nett-score team. Next week will be the last in this series and it is a fancy dress event, so it should be even more fun.

On Saturday, I was up at 4am, out of the house by 5am, for our annual Striders Tortiose Tuff race day. We were hosting four races on the same day, a 10km run/walk, a 21km run/walk, a 30km run, and a 3km fun run for the junior members of the community. We have been planning this event for the last four months or so, and today was the day. Lots of activity in the morning setting up gazebos, assisting the official timekeepers to set up their equipment, making sure things were going to run smoothly for the enjoyment of our athletic guests.

By the end of the day, a little after midday, all the athletes were in, prizes were handed out, and we had tidied up the school grounds we had hired as our event venue. It was a huge success with only a minor glitch caused by the timekeepers who had given us the wrong names on one of the distance categories. The prize money for the categories was the same, so it didn't make for too much of a hassle. And the Emcee's microphone battery ran down as well, so we had to scurry around looking for a spare for a few minutes.

The surprise came late in the afternoon, however, when our club chairman posted a photo on our committee WhatsApp group that he had received from one of the athletes enquiring whether we knew about it. See if you can spot the mistake...

No? Some of you may also have noticed that I intentionally misspelled "Tortoise", twice, on this blog posting. Found it now? 

How embarrassing for us as a club.... So far, we have only had that one query about the spelling of the event...and we're hoping that that's the only one. Our chairman will spin it as a brand name though, I'm sure, as the race itself is "Tuff" and not "Tough".

Here's a link to the official race posting and photos. Enjoy...

And so ends this week. The Chinese F1 race is over and I predicted correctly that the young Australian driver, Oscar Piastri, would win. He has been driving consistently well this season and was due for a win. Congrats to him. Later on this afternoon I'm off to friends in Brenton for a Dop 'n' Tjop evening...bring-and-braai, in other words. There'll be some tanning of meat on an open flame and I'll probably crack that bottle of red wine I won at the bowls. A good way to end the week, I think...Next week will bring other adventures...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Good idea, babe...

 At a loss of what to write about today, I asked for suggestions and my fabulous daughter, Tamlyn, came back with a suggestion of perhaps a book review or some interesting music I've heard recently.

So maybe I'll do both...

On the music scene, I've been listening to a bunch of music lately, in fact since M went into the care home, so that would be for nearly two months now. Mostly, it's been a mish-mash of three playlists either in the bakkie (on the new system), or on my phone via my bone-conduction headset.

Those bone-conduction units are quite remarkable. They fit over your ear and leave the ear passages open so that other ambient sounds can still be heard. Cycling with traditional headphones is illegal in SA because of the way they cover your ears completely, blocking all other sounds, and have been blamed for multiple cyclist (and jogger) injuries, even deaths. They should also be banned for joggers, but aren't for some unknown reason (to my knowledge).

I love my headset. They are light and don't squash against my head, even with my cycling helmet on. First and foremost though, they are loud. Music should hardly ever be listened to softly, unless company demands it. If I'm on my own, the neighbours can usually hear my music (okay, not on the headset, on the hi-fi system).

But that's not all, folks.... They aren't just a headset for listening to tunes. They also act as a hands-free headset for your phone. If the phone rings, press the button on the headset and talk like normal. Two for the price of one.

So, if you still like to pick up other sounds around you while wearing a headset, or simply want a different listening experience, go out and get yourself a set. I picked mine up cheap (R265, I think) on Temu. "Ah, but Temu is just cheap Chinese crap", I hear you say. Not always, I say. Be picky about what you order, speak to other folks who have ordered the same or similar, check product reviews, and so on before you make a purchase.

Without naming an imported brand available locally, my Temu set was one fifteenth the price of the branded unit. Yep, the branded unit goes for R4k. Mine were cheap as chips in comparison, and I'll wager the sound is just as good.

Anyway, I digress for music a bit...

So I said I've been listening to a mixture of three playlists. Those are Rock (like I would be without that), Smooth (a combo of ballads across the ages), and New Wave (yep, 80s tunes).

They all have great songs in them, some even go across playlists, but depending on my mood I can easily find something I want to listen to. And with just over 2,000 tracks between the playlists, there is ALWAYS something to satisfy the mood of the moment.

One track I don't have downloaded to my phone yet though, I came across while watching the BBC remake of the old The Day Of The Jackal movie, but in a series format. It is a brilliant 10-part series with Eddie Redmayne in the lead role. If you haven't watched it, why not? You're missing out.

The title track to the series is by a female artist, Celeste. I have heard only a couple of her other tracks since, but it's easy to see/hear why she was chosen to provide the track on the series. It is raunchy, seductive, soleful. The title, "This is who I am" hints at the Jackal being "who he is" for whatever reasons, setting your thoughts so that you don't start judging him for what he does, but perhaps seeing him as a Lone Ranger type of person, taking out people who are benefitting from doing harm to humankind and looking at why he does it. Right or wrong, your choice. Take a listen to it and tell me what you think...

On the reading side of things, some time ago I downloaded a few Ebooks recommended by one of my fellow cyclists, himself a highly-read intellectual so I knew the reads were going to be challenging.

The first of those books is "The Poisonwood Bible", a fictional story told by the wife and four daughters of a fierce evangelical Baptist minister who takes his family to the Belgian Congo in 1959. It is about what they take with them and why (vegetable seeds being one of them, to try and alleviate hunger in his community). It is about their difficulties adapting to local culture, the struggle to be accepted by the local tribal hierarchy, the difficulty in getting the tribe to switch faiths from traditional  beliefs to Christianity. And so much more. It started off a slow, difficult read, but with perseverance it turned into something worthy of the time spent on it.

Next was a sci-fi-type novel called "The Player of Games" by Scottish writer Iain M Banks. He lived in Kirkcaldy, close to where Tamlyn lives. It is, of all things as the title suggests, about a guy who plays games for a living. But these are not normal games like chess or backgammon, these are complex multi-player and multi-layered games, played on planets in other solar systems, requiring interstellar travel just to get to the game. He is known around the solar systems about his prowess in such games, for which he was chosen by his planet's "Minds" to represent them. The game played in the finale is not only complex mentally, but there is a physical side to the game as well, which allows you to either have a body part lopped off an opponent, or worse, have him terminated. Not a good thing if you are a high-ranking military representative on your host's planet, I assure you. Another interesting read...

I'm currently on another of the recommended books, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. This is going to be a challenging read, as he explores and "outlines the theory of geographic determinism, the idea that the differences between societies and societal development arise primarily from geographical causes." So far, he has started talking about why Africa appears to have not progressed as fast as Europe, for example, but I am still only on the first 20 pages so it is going to be a long, thoughtful read, I think.

Some of the other books and authors I've read include (by author first name):

- All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

- The Librarian of Auschwitx - Antonio Iturbe

- The Twelve Tribes of Hattie - Ayana Mathis

- Wild - Cheryl Strayed

- We are not like them - Christine Pride

- To Sleep In a Sea of Stars - Christopher Paolini

- Songbirds - Christy Lefteri

- The Beekeeper of Aleppo - Christy Lefteri

- Various titles by Dan Brown

- Various titles by David Baldacci

- Various titles by Denise Mina (Scottish authoress)

- Various titles by Deon Meyer

- Hemingway on Fishing - Ernest Hemingway

- The Snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway

- The Housemaid - Freida McFadden

- The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris

- Various titles by James Rollins

- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Jack Weatherford

- The President's Keepers - Jacques Pauw

- The Paris Library - Janet Skeslien Charles

- Various titles by Ken Follett

- Various titles by Len Deighton (my favourite author as a 20-something year old)

- A Long Walk to Water - Linda Sue Park

- The Round House - Louise Erdrich

- The Storm Sister - Lucinda Riley

- Bone River - Megan Chance

- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

- The Bone Bed - Patricia Cornwell

- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot

- Black is the new White - Paul Mooney

- Kim - Rudyard Kipling

- Moonlight and Ashes - Rosie Goodwin

- Whispers - Rosie Goodwin

- I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes

- Various titles by Thomas Hardy, the best of which was probably "Two on a Tower"

- Beware of Cat - Vincent Wyckoff

- Various titles by Val McDermid (another Scottish authoress)

- Various titles by Wilbur Smith (in fact, all his books)

So, if you're looking for something to amuse yourself with, I recommend any of those highlighted, italicised titles above...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Writer's Block, already...?

 I'm at a loss about what to write today. Seriously.

On the one hand, there is so much I could write about, but on the other I'm thinking there is just too much, too many topics to pick one.

So.... To my lone reader out there, it's up to you. Leave me a comment with a topic, and I'll dredge something up...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Love won, love lost, won again, lost again...

 ...so goes a romance story written by my good friend, Max, on his blog.

At his request, I'm not going to point to the blog, as he wants to keep it private.

The romance is almost movie-like in its plot, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, reconnects after many years and a whole lot of life, loses touch again. Perhaps permanently.

It's a sad story in one way, but the life that happened in the middle was what led to his two great boys being born, growing up and giving Max a couple of grandkids and many happy memories. True, it also left him with some scars, but he's lived the life that was given him and he has few, if any, regrets.

In fact, I would hazard a guess that this is one of his few regrets. The regret that he didn't pursue the romance, so therefore wonders what would have happened, where it would have led him, where he would be right now. But also, knowing Max, sitting alone on his deck with a smoke, he might overthink it.

The fact of the matter is that he, and the lady in question, are both available to each other to pursue the romance. If they wanted to. All it would take is a phone call or a WhatsApp message.

Max, my opinion, not that you asked for it and don't hate me for it... Do it. It'll make your day. And probably hers too. You're on "two strikes" already...swing the bat a third time, you might just make the contact needed for a home run. I'm rooting for you, brother...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Sigh...

 ...I guess that's not going to happen...

I was browsing Instagram last night and came across an ad for crew to sail on single, or multiple, legs of the next Round-The-World yacht race. Having done some sailing in the early 2000's, it piqued my interest and I downloaded the information package provided by their link. The package contained all the information you needed to tell you what skills were required (virtually none) and what the race entailed, including the various legs to make up the whole.

I was interested in the leg from Brazil back to Cape Town, seeing as I would need to fly out from South Africa to wherever my chosen leg was going to start from. Additionally, if I didn't get off in Cape Town, I would also have to fly back to SA from the destination city. Made total sense to do the Brazil/SA leg.

To enable participation in the race, you would also have to do a compulsory 26-days training schedule. That's not a bad idea, seeing as I last sailed in 2000, when I sailed from Durban to Zanzibar. That also had me doing some training courses with the Ocean Sailing Academy in Durban. A whole month spent on a yacht, mostly tied up in the yacht basin, but also lots of hands-on sailing practice in Durban harbour and offshore. Good times...

These courses would be a good idea to get my head around sailing things again, like knots, terminology, sail practices, maintenance, and so on.

I was excited to think of getting back on the water again, until I saw the prices I would be faced with...

- Mandatory courses - GBP 6,700

- Leg 2 costs - GBP 7,000

- Flight to UK for training - GBP 510

- Flight to Brazil for start of Leg 2 - GBP 300

- Grand Total - GBP 14,510

It doesn't sound too bad when you consider what is all included in that total. The shock comes when you convert it back to good old Souf Efrican Ront....... ZAR 342,870 give or take a few cents.

So, yeah...... {sigh}....end of dream...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

That's more like it...

 ,,,a decent sound system in the bakkie. Nothing beats it.

I had a "decent" system in until recently, in the form of a traditional head unit and 600w Cadence active subwoofer.

But then the sub went "pop" and stopped working. Looks like it's a power supply problem. All the connections are in place and there is power to the unit according to the volt-meter.

If there's one thing I don't like when I'm driving by myself, it is complete silence. I need music. Any music.

For a while I have been using my bone-conduction earphones bluetooth-connected to my phone, and they're decent enough for blocking out the other shoppers as I'm walking/dancing around Spar, but in the car I want something with a bit of "oomph". So I decided to treat myself.

I went online to see what my options were. First, I went onto Temu to see what was available in the active sub department. Some nice units, but not a lot. And when I compared them to local units and pricing, I thought I may as well buy local.

So I ordered a new digital touch-screen head unit, a Targus. It has all the bells-and-whistles, bluetooth, USB input and output, phone connection, Android Auto, and a decent 4x 65w output power to the speakers. Nice unit, at a nice price. Sold.

Then the active sub. I ordered a 10inch Black Widow, at what I thought was 1,200w output (more about that later). Compared to the old 600w, it should be more than enough power for a bakkie's sound. Nice unit, at a nice price. Sold.

I had to wait about a week for the units to be delivered, which wasn't a problem. I'd done without decent sound for a while, so what was another week. In fact, the original delivery estimate was fourteen days, but they arrived a week early. Excellent!

There's nothing quite like unboxing new gadgets. People can say what they like about "Aaah, it's just a new xxxxx", but look them in the eye and look for the glint. It will be there. They're amp'ed (pardon the pun) to open their new xxxxx.

First, I open the active sub, thinking it probably works off the same type of connections and should be easy to install. Plus I'll be able to test it on the old head unit before I swap that out.

Bingo! The connections are all the same except for the boost toggle. The physical size of the unit is also slightly larger than the old sub, but it's easy enough to install the new one with a couple of self-tapping screws on the firewall behind the back seat. Unfortunately, there's not much place in a bakkie for something like this and they are typically installed where I put it. I swap out the old boost toggle cable for the new one, and power the unit up. Green lights are a good sign.

The sound is good, very strong bass as I wanted, but it's a bit lacking in "oomph", so I swap out the head units to see how much of a difference there will be. The old head unit only had 45w output per channel, so I'm expecting good things on the new one.

The electrical and speaker connections are all identical to the old unit, so it is literally "plug and play" with the head units. Excellent! I had visions of clipping and joining wire harnesses, but not so!!

Then I hit the one and only snag with the new head units. As the new unit is digital, it has a slightly higher screen than the old one and does not fit 100% in the dashboard slot, despite the unit itself being the advertised 1U height. It's actually the bakkie's dashboard that's the problem. The bakkie is19yrs old this year, and radio configurations/heights were different back then. Ah well. It's in, but not quite the way it was intended to fit.

Then I notice something on the active sub's box....... It isn't 1,200w output power..... It is 12,000w...!!! Yep, 12,000w of sound!!!

Now I can't wait to hear the new head unit. Power it up, plug in my USB module with some music and wait for it to start playing. It starts off nice and low, and I use the remote control to turn the volume up slowly (for some unknown reason, you can only alter the volume by remote control...not the best idea, Targus). Suddenly, I'm starting to smile. I am loving this new sound. It is mind-blowingly loud!!! Even mother comes out to see what's going on and just shakes her head at me.

There is a bit of reverberation on the active sub, so I adjust the input gain down a little to prevent that. And all of a sudden, I'm loving the sound in the bakkie again.

I used to only take the bakkie out every couple of weeks or so, mostly when I did my NSRI rounds to check all the Pink Buoys in the area. Now, however, I've driven the bakkie more in the last two weeks than I have in the last two months.

My next plan is to get the old 600w active sub repaired and install that in the runabout car. It is sadly lacking in decent sound. Always has been, but that's what you can expect of an entry-level runabout.

Rock on, people... 😎

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Next time, the tortoise dies...

I was minding my own business eating a banana on the patio, when mother calls up to tell me there's a tortoise next door, lying on its back.

I look over the fence and see that Harry, our local bully and dominant male, has overturned an opponent and is still busy trying to poke the poor adversary with his horny bit. Literally trying to finish him off.

Feeling I need to intervene, I go down and start climbing over the low wall. As I put my weight on the top brick, it crumbles off the wall, goes over, and gravity pulls me over with it. I land on the brick, instantly feeling like my shoulder blade has been pushed through my chest to my throat. FUUUCCKKK!!!! The pain is like nothing I've felt for a while. Groaning, wanting to make sure I haven't broken anything, I stumble to my feet, gasping for breath, eyes closed in agony. I can walk, so it can't be that bad.

Without checking further, I turn the unfortunate tortoise over onto its feet at which Harry, still trying to poke the guy, hisses at me in frustration. Fuck you, Harry.

I leave the two of them to scurry off into the long grass and check myself. There's blood running down my arm from a few cuts, some loose pieces of skin from the same cuts, but my right side ribs feel like I've been hit on that side by a train.

I make my way back over the wall, avoiding another loose brick on the way over, and head to the bathroom where I pull off the loose bits of skin and clean the cuts with some Hibiscrub. They look okay now, but the ribs are sore, next to my spine. I think they're going to be really sore later once the adrenalin wears off and the muscles cool down.

Sleeping tonight is going to be an interesting experience, I think.

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

Paul's Final Ride...

 On Sunday, 16th February, a group of seven of us set out on a 65km-ish mountain bike (MTB) ride at 06h15. It's a ride that changed the lives of everyone in the group, and even more people on the outside of it.

We left the local bike shop on time, slowly warming up cold muscles. The group consisted of mostly local riders who have known each other for some time, except for a German tourist, Falco, and Paul (pictured second and first from right respectively). Paul had joined the group just two days before. It would be his second ride with a local group, the first being just the day before. Paul and his wife had recently relocated from Johannesburg to Wilderness, and he was just getting back into MTB cycling after their move.

The ride was progressing smoothly, at a sedate pace, with the group in a jovial, relaxed mood, enjoying the outdoors and the light exercise.

Paul made the observation that we were riding the same type of bike and we started chatting, eventually getting onto families and what his wife does for a living. She is doing her Phd in art therapy for dementia patients. It immediately piqued my interest because, as you now know, M has dementia/alzheimers and we spoke of how he would mention it to his wife and I would discuss it with the care facility manager where M is admitted about how it could be a mutually-beneficial relationship.

Once we got to the top of Hologram Hill, a climb of about 6km, we turned left onto Seven Passes Road and shortly after that, right onto the Beervlei Road. The real trail ride was about to begin.

The trail turned from gravel road to single track, winding down a narrow path through wet grass and over slippery rocks. This was why we ride our MTB bikes!! After a kilometre or so, we came out at a clearing and a valley, through which one of the local streams flows, where we stopped off to admire the scenery, have a quick snack for some new energy, and just swap some general chit-chat about the ride. Everything was progressing smoothly.

On the other side of the stream, the long grass forced us to push our bikes about 100m up the hill, but that was over quickly and we soon began riding again. The path wound along contours with the occasional incline or decline giving a bit of a change of pace.

Pretty soon, we came to the end of the trail and turned left onto the Bergplaas Road, which would take us back to Seven Passes Road and from there down the notoriously steep T-Shirt Hill and eventually back to Sedgefield.

Sadly though, Paul never came back with us.

About 200m up the hill, Paul was on his own off the front, about 50m ahead of two others. I was a further 50m behind them. Suddenly, I saw Paul stand up on his pedals and then crash and roll over onto his back. My immediate thought was that he had slipped on a loose rock and come down hard.

When I got to him, the two ahead of me were trying to release Paul's clipped-in shoes from his pedals, but I could see that this was more than merely a fall as Paul wasn't moving. A quick assessment indicated that he may have had a heart attack. We found a pulse and put him into the recovery position, but soon that pulse faded away and we could not detect any breathing.

From that moment on, we sprang together as a team. We were in an area with poor mobile phone reception, so one of us went over the hill to act as a relay for calls and messages, as required. One of us got on the phone to emergency services to request an ambulance. The other four of us began CPR, taking turns between pumping Paul's chest and giving oral breathing. Basic medical training I had had in the NSRI came back to me, and at first I had reservations about breathing direct mouth-to-mouth without the use of a screen, but this was a guy's life we were dealing with, so it was a no-brainer.

"A" was on the phone to EMS and getting very frustrated at their lack of reaction. This was because they wanted to know what Paul's medical aid number was, what his ID number was, and stupid details like that, all which could have been sorted out later. Priority should have been about despatching an ambulance to our location. Eventually he got it through to them that we were in the middle of nowhere and we had none of those details. Paul had even left his phone in his car back at the shop so we didn't have any contacts for him. In the meantime, we were still giving CPR. Once you start, you cannot legally stop, until the person either comes round or is declared dead by a medical attendant/paramedic/doctor.

Falco had contacted his wife, who is a paramedic, and she confirmed that we were doing the correct compression to breathing ratios. She also immediately got into her car and raced to our location to assist, but she would be about 20mins away at least.

Finally, ONE HOUR after we got hold of EMS, the first ambulance appeared over the hill. And not only did we get one ambulance, we got THREE arriving within minutes of each other. The Vodacom 112 Emergency Control Room is fucking useless!!

The paramedics assessed the situation and took over, putting Paul onto oxygen and a heart monitor, but after a couple of minutes took the decision to "make the call". Paul was declared dead on scene.

It was really then that it hit us what had just happened over the last hour or so, and the emotion poured out of us in many different ways. We had all just met this guy and this would be the last time we saw him too.

There were the usual self-recrimination emotions in the group ("did we do enough?", "could we have done more?") but we were assured by both Falco's wife and the paramedics that we had indeed done all we could have. One of the paramedics asked me what I had seen and when I explained it, he said that they call this type of incident a "widow-maker", where nothing is apparently wrong, but the next moment the person is gone.

Some time later, when we confirmed that we were not required on scene anymore, the team decided we would complete the ride back to Sedgefield, about 30km away. The ride was completed in reflection and near-silence, with an air of disbelief hanging over us like a dark cloud.

Falco suggested we stop off at the local brewery and toast Paul's life and bid him our final farewell. That done, we were making our individual ways home and "S", the bike shop owner, stopped to say that he was heading to the airport in George. Paul's wife was in Joburg on business, due back that afternoon, and would no doubt wonder why Paul wasn't there to collect her.

S had retrieved Paul's phone from his car, but was legally not allowed to unlock it even to check for an emergency contact. He didn't know how he was going to get hold of Paul's wife and I said the only way was to answer the phone when she called to find out where Paul was. In the end, that's exactly what happened, while S was still 5mins from the airport. Falco's wife had gone with S to the airport and between them, had to break the devastating news to her. I don't envy them for having had to do that.

This last weekend, I did a solo ride on the same route we took that day, partly to clear my head from things happening around me and gather some thoughts, but also to stop off and pay my respects at the scene. What I found there was very touching. One of our group, I suspect Falco as I cannot find anyone else who might have done it, had erected a simple cross (even though Paul was Jewish) and written "RIP Paul. 16.2.25 Thanks for the ride. From the 6 of us..." and listed our names below one another.

I sat a few minutes, recounting that day, said a final few words to Paul, and continued my ride. It turned out to be one of the best rides, solo or group, that I've had in a long time. Peaceful, even serene, but it helped me sort out an issue I had been dealing with, and I'm thankful for that.

This coming weekend we are doing a memorial ride to the scene. S has had a small plaque made which we will mount, probably on a tree next to the scene. It will probably be our last visit for the purpose of remembering Paul, but every time we go past there in the future we will remember that fateful day, say hello to Paul and hope he is riding a bike wherever he is. He clearly loved riding.

R.I.P. Paul...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

On a lighter note...

 ...my cracked/broken rib may just be badly bruised.

I'm moving a little easier, which would not be possible if the rib was broken.

This afternoon is Barefoot Bowls, a bi-annual event at our local sports club. For the first time, I am participating in one of the teams. If any of you know lawn bowls, it involves lots of bending up and down to roll your "marble" to the other side. A broken/cracked rib would be extremely painful with all the bending one has to do during a game.

So we'll see later how comfortable, or not, it is.

Hopefully it'll be okay as I'm due on a memorial bicycle ride on Sunday. Maybe the lead-up to that will be my next long posting. Stand by...

Look after yourselves out there, folks...

I've made a few tough decisions in my life...

 ...but this was by FAR the toughest, and most emotional, I've ever had to make. I never want to make another decision like it.

It changed lives, that's how tough.

Back in late 2020, my Missus (name reserved, we'll call her M for this purpose - not her real name initial) was diagnosed as having early-onset dementia/Alzheimers disease. At the time, M was 58, so it was very early onset as it usually only affects people in their later years. The reason we had the tests done was to ascertain if it was something like this, or PTSD as a result of numerous abuses and situations from her earlier life (details I'm not going to go into here, but were probably contributing factors, according to the doctors).

The symptoms between PTSD and Alzheimers can often be confused, except that PTSD can be successfully treated in many instances. Alzheimers, on the other hand, cannot be treated. There is NO CURE!  It is a horrible disease that affects the cognitive functions of the brain, and includes memory loss, an inability to think logically, increased anxiety levels and eventually leads to the brain causing other complications. The most common cause of death in Alzheimers patients is aspiration pneumonia, and not the brain shutting down as is more commonly thought.

Myself and a few other friends had noticed a change in M a couple of years earlier, when she became quite verbally aggressive towards myself, picking fights unnecessarily and accusing me of all sorts of things, none of which were true. At the time, she was going through menopause, so I attributed it to that. How wrong I was.

Over the coming years, we could see other changes in M, like she was withdrawing from conversations in social events, struggling to identify simple items (basically couldn't identify anything with a noun), losing quite a lot of weight even though she has a healthy appetite, losing coordination and thought processes. The ladies at her pilates class called me one day and said she was driving erratically and I had to stop her from driving altogether. From then until the time she stopped going to classes, I would drive her there, then go for a cycle for the hour of her class and be there to take her home when the class was over. Even her actions in class were erratic according to the ladies, but they enjoyed having her bubbly personality there so didn't mind that she would sometimes get lost on exercises or burst out in a giggle fit when she was trying to do something. They are all wonderful people who loved and treated her as if she was "one of the girls".

Just five years ago, M was an intelligent, creative home cook who enjoyed all sorts of cooking and baking, but the advancement of the disease really hit home one day when she was in the kitchen making a simple spaghetti bolognaise, and couldn't remember what to do. After more than an hour of her floundering around, I had to take over and finish preparing the meal. From that day, about two years ago now, M didn't cook another meal, didn't even boil a kettle. And on that day, I started not only preparing meals for all of us, but also performing all the household chores that M used to do (I'll call them the "typical" chores that women traditionally perform) because she could no longer perform simple tasks that most of us take for granted.

From the following day on, I had to set out M's clothes for the day, get her showered and dressed (even tell her that her shirt was on backwards, such were the details of what she couldn't do anymore), make breakfast and settle her down on a couch from where she would watch whatever channel (typically CNN, for some unknown reason) was on the TV until someone changed it. I even had her screaming at me one day because she got so frustrated at not remembering how to use a TV remote control.

Physically, there is absolutely nothing wrong with M. Until recently, we would go to our local athletics club every Wednesday, walk 3km and sit with the folks afterward for a couple of drinks. Sometimes, M would get confused and want to jog the course, but I had to rein her in and slow her down. One of her habits is mimicking people around her. If they ran, she wanted to run. The same with walking. Sometimes she confused the two, went out walking and came back jogging, or vice versa.

Late in 2024, as further progression of the disease, M became incontinent at night. Early one morning I woke to her lying on her back, waving her arms like she was making snow angels, except that she was lying in her own urine. And over the following weeks, it got progressively worse to such an extent that I had to put her to bed in adult diapers.

From there, our day typically started at 5am, where I would clean M off, wash her in the shower and  get her redressed, then back into bed with a cup of coffee, whereafter I would go for a short cycle to help with my dealing of the situation. I would usually get home after about 2hrs, to find her still in bed sometimes looking at a magazine or paging through a book she was trying to read. Once I'd showered after my ride, I would help M get dressed as well, as described earlier. Talk about "rinse and repeat".

That was until mid-January 2025, when I made the toughest decision of my life.

I had been talking to a couple of people in the "care" business and they suggested that it might be time, for both our wellbeing, to either get a carer for M or consider admitting her to a care facility. I looked around at what our options were, and considered what I thought would be the best course of action for us, but especially for M's continued care.

I have to mention here that I was not only looking after M at the time, but also my 81yr old mom (who has COPD/emphysema) and my 11yr old Nephewmonster (another sad story), as well as trying to look after myself through it all. I'm not ashamed to admit that my mental health was taking a serious knock as well. Between what was happening with all the personalities in the house, in equal blame, I must say, I was becoming more and more stressed, really only having my cycling to vent my frustrations and keep me grounded.

Considering that M's condition was only going to get worse and she would eventually need 24hr care support, I couldn't bring a carer into the house as it would not only complicate matters (M can only recognise and remember about four people) but it would delay the inevitable move to permanent care.

So on 22nd January I made the heartbreaking decision to admit M to a local care facility.

The range of emotions I went through, and still go through, is staggering. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I was not ready for how hard it was, and still is. Even sitting here now, there's a lump in my throat just thinking back. I went to meet with the care facility manager, who listened to my story, waiting for me to speak while I choked back words and emotions, even tears.

By the end of the relatively short meeting, she decided that M might be a case for their facility and would come to the house with one of her nursing sisters to meet and talk to M to confirm. Needless to say, they agreed that M was a "prime candidate" for their care, and we began discussions around when the move would take place.

At around 10am on 31st January, I packed a small suitcase according to a list of instructions from the facility, sat M in the car and took her to "her new home". Needless to say, she was unaware of what was happening, despite me trying to explain it to her in detail. The disease just does not allow her to understand anything remotely as complex as this.

We sat with the ladies at the facility, chatting all the while, allowing M to get to know them, after which M was taken through to a large room that has a rectangular table in the centre. Around the table were about a half dozen other patients, all with varying levels of the disease, all having been there for some time already.

I wasn't allowed to go through with them so that I couldn't disturb what they were doing and how they introduced M to the folks. Instead, I was told that that would be a good time for me to leave so that they could start getting M settled in. The settling in process would be a lengthy one and I would not be able to visit M for two weeks, which they told me was average/normal.

The walk back to the car was like walking through a waterfall with tears blurring my vision. I got in the car and sat for a long time bawling my eyes out, blaming myself for deserting M, guilt and frustration burning into my mind. Those feelings have not gone away. I'm not sure they ever will. The memory of that day certainly never will.

Here I am now, living comfortably at home with all our earthly possessions, but M isn't here to enjoy them as well. We built the household together, gathered "stuff" together, made a lot of decisions together, changed our lives together. No more though. How fucking unfair is that to us? How fucking unfair is that to M? Granted, M is comfortable in the facility, where they are wonderfully caring people, and most of her needs are catered for, but it isn't "home". Where she should be.

A number of people, including the facility manager, have told me to "make a new life" for myself. There are times I struggle to deal with that thought. M and I have been together for 25yrs. You don't just give up on 25yrs and "make a new life". Not in this case anyway. Or am I wrong?

Never fear. I'm not about to take a jump off a ladder or take a long swim straight out to sea. I'm stronger than that. I will deal with the complexities of this life-changing sequence of events. I might even "make a new life" for myself. Time will tell.

Look after yourselves out there, folks...