The Anonymous Widower

Thea Ford

This is a singer I know. For more info click here. Hopefully, I’m going to see her perform at the O2 Academy on August 5th.

July 11, 2011 Posted by | World | , | Leave a comment

The Interaction Between Coeliac Disease, Hay Fever and My Stroke

I had the stroke about twelve months ago and I thought that by now I would be starting to feel better, but as time goes on, I seem to be feeling worse and worse.

Take today, I got up just around six and felt reasonably good after about eight hours of sleep.  I used the hay fever spray on my nose, but when I left home about eleven, I felt that the optimism of the early morning had disappeared.  My left shin was tight, as it often is and my nose was blocked solid with the hay fever.  After lunch with a friend, I returned to the Angel to do a bit of shopping and could hardly walk back from the bus to my house, such was the tightness in my shin and the pain in my left arm.  I checked my e-mails and then lay on the bed, where I fell asleep for a couple of hours. I feel reasonably bright now, although there is a pain in the back of my left shin. What is strange is that I only get pains in my left shin and left arm.  I know that was the side of the stroke, but I’ve always had occasional pain in my left arm from where a bully broke it at school and over the past couple of years, I’ve had pain in the back of my left shin, since I trod on a razor shell on Holkham Beach.  I couldn’t be sure, but these pains could have been worse in the spring, or should that be hay fever time.

In trying to find out what is wrong, an MRI Scan has shown problems in my neck, where a nerve might be trapped. But it’s nothing serious that good physiotherapy shouldn’t be able to sort out.

If I go back a few weeks, when the pollen was low for a few days, all of the pain disappeared. So it does seem that the pain is partly caused by the pollen levels, which at the moment are moderate.  But then they have been for several weeks.

Another point is that at times my gut feels not quite right. It’s almost like being glutened and it feels as though something not too nice is upsetting my digestion. In some ways, it’s something that may have plagued me for years.  So do histimines created by the pollen upset your digestion system?  Especially, if you’re a coeliac.

I have a feeling that the only solution is to take a gluten free cruise.

July 11, 2011 Posted by | Health | , , | 2 Comments

Anne Boleyn at Shakespeare’s Globe

I’d never been to the Globe on the South Bank and I don’t think I’ve ever been to the theatre on a Sunday before in the UK.

The picture shows the outside in the fine weather.

Outside Shakespeare's Globe

And this one shows the people inside just before the play started.

Inside Shakespeare's Globe

I enjoyed the experience a lot and it is good venue.  The play by Howard Brenton was good and was very much worth seeing.

I’m looking forward to seeing some Shalespeare in a theatre similar in layout to those for which it was written.

July 11, 2011 Posted by | World | , | Leave a comment