A Beautiful Day for a Walk in the Park

Wednesday dawned sunny and warm, but until the sun shone on the treetops, I was busy at my computer doing my SPACE homework and loving every second of it. Then, just past 9:00, we went to meet our friends to walk out dogs. They walked further than Her Highness and I did because I wanted to get home to receive my Tezspire when it arrived. I must sign for it and immediately refrigerate it when it arrives.

Our walk was a delight because of the brilliant weather. Everyone’s spirits were high, including the dogs, and the air was rich with the healing fragrances of the forest. My God, I love walking in the forest. City people have no idea how incredibly sensual, healthy and uplifting forest walking is, and I get to do it every day at least twice.

Aidan wrote me a kind note of appreciation yesterday. It thrilled me. I have struggled with feelings of poor self-worth all my life, so when someone values me, it really makes me feel great. And he sent more work for me to do that I’ll do today after he and I join a STAMMA Zoom conference entitled Ending the Phone Call Nightmares. Could there be a more interesting and relevant conference for us?

My Tezspire arrived and the driver was a lovely guy. Everything is so routine now. They always take my packaging from the previous month when they deliver a new needle, and the unpacking and repacking are routine to me now. And once processed and after lunch was served to the four-leggers, I went to Drumbeg Park because it was so Spring-like.

Buds on my Daffodils.

It was 13° — my Apple watch measures the temperature and posts it on my clock dial. How handy is that? — sunny and still. There was no wind and the sea was flat calm. Kids were playing with no coats on. I had my coat on, but I kept it open. However, regardless of the beauty of the day, there was hardly anyone there. I was able to let Sheba off the leash as we walked even though we were in a provincial park.

My foot is getting worse. It’s been five months since Jennifer sent in a requisition for a cortisone shot for me, and still no word. That’s fine, I’m happy to be patient, but I worry about how long the relief I get from the shot will last, because I will want another shot and that will mean at least another five months waiting. A month from now, I’m going to see Jennifer to get some prescription renewals, and I’m going to ask her about the cortisone efficacy over time and depending on what she says. I may ask her to send in a new requisition every X months—the length of time that the drug works—to reduce my waiting time.

In the evening, I wrote three short essays: one about neurogenic stuttering, another about shame in the stuttering community, and the last one on the telephone relay service. SPACE is going to launch a blog, and so Aidan wanted some content. I’m sure he’s asked many of us working with him, and so it should make an impression on those who check it out. The challenge will be maintaining good copy, but I’m confident that we can do it.

It was nice to spend an evening not watching a movie, and tonight will me sans cinema as well because I am going to The Surf to eat with Kris, Steve and Nancy. I’ll also be working on re-writes of the essays. I’m really looking forward to that work!

I love opals!

❤️ SPACE!

Tuesday was dry! It was wonderful to be able to walk without worrying about rain. And it’s so warm, walking Her Highness is a treat.

I was reluctant to leave home through the day because my Tezspire is due today, but it often comes a day early. So, I after our walk, I read a while and napped before my meeting with Aidan at 14:00. And what a meeting it was! I am practically in love with Aidan. He is so dedicated to helping us stutterers, and he is smart and very articulate, and he is often sending me lovely messages of gratitude for my contributions. He and SPACE have given me such a wonderful sense of fulfilment, pride and joy.

Then Her Highness and I went walking late in the afternoon when I was certain that Fedex wasn’t coming with my Tezspire today. We took a short walk in Rollo Park and then we went to Nester’s so that I could get more fresh fruit and veggies for another batch of curried rice salad. I make mountains of it. 

I’ve become a massive fan of brown rice. I’d put a load of it on in my rice cooker before leaving for our walk and shop, and when I came home and opened the door, the smell of the rice cooking smelt quite like popcorn at a movie theatre. It is such a wonderfully pleasant smell. I’ll never go back to white rice.

I have a ton of homework to do today for SPACE, and I could not be happier to have something to occupy my mind that is practical and that helps Aidan. The Tezspire will come today, so I must stay home and I’ll have my homework to do while I await its arrival.

It’s still amazingly mild outside, and we’re getting sunshine for the coming four days, and then the rains return. But better than mild temperatures and no rain is the fact that there’s still no snow predicted. This is often the coldest month of our year, so the risk for snow is high. But so far, so, so good!

I noticed that I have jobs the need attention in my garden. Sheesh, everything is budding like mad and I didn’t so some essential pruning, so I will do some during this good weather. But not today; today is a SPACE day.

More of Same

Monday morning was a wet one, but wonderfully mild. We met our friends to walk in light rain, and then Her Highness and I went into the village to get some groceries and to pick up a prescription. Then we came home so Sheba could rest and I could putter until lunch. 

I Zoomed with Steve who left last night for New Zealand and Australia for a month. He turns 70 today, and as he does every time he enters a new decade, he goes off to an exotic location. On his 60^th, he went to Easter Island and on his 50^th, we went to South Africa together.

In the afternoon, I did work for SPACE. Aidan wanted me to develop some text for the project I’ve been hired to be part of, drawing the ideas from a STAMMA questionnaire about bad communication experiences experienced by stutterers. I’m proud and happy to be working on fixing problems that people who stutter have. 

A great many people who stutter (PWS) are ‘covert’ stutterers. Covert stutterers can pass as fluent speakers. They avoid words that cause them problems to achieve fluency. Being covert is not possible for me. I, and all severe stutterers, cannot hide our disfluency and it’s us who have the worst problems with AI generated voices and impatient clerks and customer service people.

Our afternoon walk was short because there was still light rain, but we’d had a good long morning walk. And then our we both enjoyed our regular evening routing together.

Today is warm and wet again. We’ll walk, I’ll Zoom with Aidan, I’ll read and tonight will be like every other Winter evening. It looks like the coming three days will be bright and dry for a change. We’re in for some good walking weather.

My Day

Sunday, My Day, began slowly. Fred ensured that I was up early. He was howling in the bedroom just after 4:30! I fed everyone and lit the fire and then I watched two of my favourite vloggers weekly post of videos about their renovation of the derelict homes they bought. Jude is renovating a cottage in north-eastern Scotland, and Martijn is renovating two old stone homes high in the Italian Alps.

I waited to walk Her Highness late so that after our walk we could go into the village to do some grocery shopping. When I was a kid, people around us shopped once a week. They did huge grocery runs at a time when I was eating vegetables out of tins. I didn’t really learn to cook until I moved in with Marie-Claude and Guy in Nice. Marie-Claude taught me recipes, and she taught me to shop daily so that everything cooked was fresh. That was in 1974-75, and my inclination to shop almost every day is still with me, some fifty years later. 

We went to walk the Ricki Ave. trail, but Sheba was limping and so I checked her feet and found a wound. We came home and I cleaned, medicated and wrapped her wound and then we went shopping. 

Not long after getting home, it was lunch time and then it was chaise time for me. I’m reading a Martin Walker crime novel. I read every book in his Bruno series, and this book I’m reading is his latest. It feels good to be back to reading about the Dordogne area again. Mr. Walker’s books are full of writing about food and I love that!

I revisited some old posts. I noticed that it took several days for me to not mention being scammed after the event. I could count the days it too for normalcy to return. I was shaken for about five days. And then I looked at posts following my breakdown on April 9, 2016. I didn’t stop writing about my speech and seizures for 3.5 years! My breakdown required on hell of an adjustment that is still going on, but it’s not my obsession anymore, it’s just something that continues to require adaptation. Re-reading the posts certainly put the scam in perspective. 

And guess what. I got another scam call. It was the same story as last time, only this time I hung up on the asshole by slamming my phone handle down on the disconnect button. It was especially inappropriate on My Day!

It was a timpanic awakening this morning. It is pouring rain out there, and it’s loud in the house, but I don’t care because it’s also 9° and it ain’t snow. It’s going to be a very mild week with afternoon temperatures reaching 13°. And it’s an easy week for me, uncluttered with obligations.