Chelsea’s Gluten-Free Wedding Cake
Is Chelsea Clinton a coeliac? I doubt it, as she sounds like a faddy foodist or lifestyle-coeliac, who has gone gluten-free for effect! I’m sure if she was really a coeliac, she would have told the media. But she is having a gluten-free wedding cake!
It was funny that the bit about this pointless wedding on Radio 5, was just before Luke Harvey did his piece about the racing at Goodwood today. He talked about Hayley Turner , who had a ride on Barshiba in the Nassau Stakes, a Group One race at the highest level.
She actually is a coeliac and admits it in interviews and articles for the papers.
We need more open coeliacs like her and less like Chelsea Clinton.
An Affordable Breakfast With Style
When you are a coeliac and like me recovering from a stroke, you have to be careful where you go for a meal. You must be sure of the food and because you might get into a mess and drop something or even everything all over the floor or yourself, it is probably a good idea to go to an establishment with staff waiting at tables.
All of this was illustrated very well, when I turned up at Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for a late breakfast or was it an early lunch?
It was sunny, so I sat outside and then ordered an Eggs Florentine without the bread and an orange juice. I’ve done this several times now in various of their cafes and no-one has minded, that I have modified their standard menu.
Gluten Free Eggs Florentine at Carluccio's
It was delicious and after adding cappucino, it cost me just £11.95, although I did add a generous tip for good service and such things like an extra serviette to make sure the mess was kept to a minimum.
I’m afraid that I tend to plan my trips around places where I know that I can eat well, easily and gluten-free. Unfortunately, not many places I hope to visit on my travels have one of Carluccio’s caffes. But it’s getting better as Leicester has no joined the list. But I suspect, I’ll be long gone before they reach Midlesbrough. They won’t be there for my trip in two weeks time.
Mind and Body Changes
In the previous post on Sudoku, I speculated how my problem solving ability was changing.
But this is not the only change that is happening.
Just after the second stroke in Hong Kong, my balance was not good and walking in a straight line was difficult. In fact when I went to physiotherapy or X-ray, it was always in a wheel chair. Incidentally, once in Addenbrookes, I was generally left to my own devices, after the first few hours. But that is in the main down to a difference in cultures.
But take what happened on my first day in Addenbrookes. I was taken to a kitchen and asked to make a cup of tea for myself. It tasted better than any cup of tea, I have ever made.
What that cup of tea taught me, was that you have to think differently and take in all possible outcomes, when you do something.
Now that I’ve been home for a few weeks and virtually looking after my cooking and personal needs on my own for the last three or so, I can see that my brain has developed new ways of doing things. As an example, I am sure, I’ve devised new ways of doing things to get round the problems I have, say with my left hand. But then I’ve done this before, when my arm was broken at school. For years, I avoided using it, as it didn’t work too well, So I sometimes used my right hand, when everybody else would have used their left.
Underneath it all, we all have several ways of doing things and when one is no longer available, we just use another one we know or devise a new one. As an example, how many of us are naturally left-handed, but have been made to write with the other hand. And then you have Ken Rosewall, who some would say was the finest tennis player of all time, but he was naturally left-handed and had been made to play with his right by his father.
The Sudoku Conundrum
In an earlier post I wrote the following.
Except for one curious thing. I do the Sudoku in The Times every day and have always found that the Super Fiendish were beyond my powers, unless I resulted to a process of elimination. That in my book is almost cheating.
But since the stroke, I can do these without problems in just a few minutes. I would never accuse such an august newspaper as The Times, of dumbing down, but they have just introduced a new section called Mind Games.
I should write to them.
I haven’t written, except to enter their Sudoku championships, where I did mention the fact that my prowess has improved.
I’m no expert on brains and how they work, but could it be a general improvement, that would have happened anyway. We all learn new tricks as we get older and have I just worked out other wheezes to find a solution. Possibly as my brain has had to relearn how to do things that it can’t do anymore, new pathways are being found or uncovered, that give my brain extra power in solving problems. On the other hand, I’ve always solved problems and that to me is almost a pastime in its own right.
Remember too, in hospital in both Hong Kong and Addenbrookes, I spent a lot of time doing the various puzzles in The Times. So it could just be a case of practice making things better, as it is by no means perfect!
Travels With My Stroke
Yesterday, I proved that I could undertake simple journeys by myself. Admittedly, I had lifts to and from home, but everything in the middle was done by myself, whether on train, tube, bus or by walking.
Did I have any problems?
Not really!
I thought about it afterwards and feel it could be a newspaper column, followed by a book. I could visit all of those places, I’ve never been before, stay in cheap hotels or with friends, travelling most of the way by public transport.
Yesterday, was the first trip, although I suppose you could could the return from Hong Kong.
I travelled up and back to London, by train from Cambridge, then used the Circle Line to get to my hotel and then used buses to get back to Kings Cross. This would seem a model that could be used for many trips.
My first planned trip will be to Middlesbrough for the first match of the season. My secretary will drop me at Bury St. Edmunds station on the Friday afternoon and then I’ll take the train to Middlesbrough, changing at Peterborough and York. I’m still trying to find a hotel in Middlesbrough for two nights, as hotels and especially near the Riverside Stadium appear to be very thin on the ground. Surely, places to stay should be one of the priorities of a council these days, as it attracts visitors, who spend money and thus create jobs.
The next weekend, I’m going to Edinburgh to see Jarlath Regan at the Gilded Balloon. Again it will be by train, with perhaps a rush back to see Ipswich on the Saturday.
I’ll see how it all progresses.
Getting Better All The Time
My left hand that is!
I just ate a whole baked potato and my left hand was so much better, than when I ate the last one a few days ago.
You can’t tell from this typing, but I’m now starting to use my left hand for characters like A, S, W and others near shift.
Could it be, that I’ve been walking around London today with a case in my right hand and this has somehow got the arm to sort itself out, as it’s not doing any work? I don’t know and don’t care, so long as the improvement stays and even increases.
At Last Some Good Health News!
I went to see the cardiologist yesterday afternoon. It was the sort of doctor’s visit that we all like!
He indicated that he had reviewed my X-rays ans scans from Addenbrookes and then asked me how I was getting on with the Warfarin. It has not been a problem for me and the anlysis at West Suffolk Hospital has gone very smoothly and professionally. He then said that the Warfarin should protect me from another stroke and that the leak in my heart valve was moderate and probably should be OK for ten years. As he knows, I’m a technologist, we talked a bit about how software and techniques are improving for a few moments. After the chat, I felt that if I did need an operation it would be a lot less serious than the ones my Mother-in-law had thirty years ago.
He then said that I should come back and see him in six months.
That last point really cheered me up!
Dry Eyes
I have been suffering from dye eyes recently and when |I last went to Addenbrookes, I got a prescription for some eye drops to ease the problem. They do to a certain extent, but I can’t put the drops in myself. I have this thing about eyes.
I did find this page for stroke sufferers on the RNIB web site, which explains how eyes can be effected by strokes and also gives some helpful advice.
A common effect of stroke-related vision problems is an increased sensitivity to light. The brain seems to have difficulty adjusting to different levels of light. Tinted glasses or sunglasses may be helpful in reducing the discomfort some people experience.
Another problem which can follow stroke is dry eye. The rate of blinking may slow following a stroke and /or there may be incomplete eye closure with a partial blink which will cause a part of the cornea to dry resulting in the eye feeling uncomfortable. Artificial tears, and reminding the person to try to blink completely and often, may be a possible solution for dry eyes.
But then the RNIB should know about eyes.
So I’m wearing my prescription sunglasses and trying to remember to blink! That is not meant to be trite or sarcastic, but it is easier for me than to put the solution in my eyes!
I Hate Flies
Are they bad this year, but they seem to be infecting my house more than usual? They have already caused me to break a glass, because I knocked the fly spray over.
But they do seem to want to sit all over me. Perhaps I taste good at the moment!
Any idea why? Is there a fly psychiatrist out there?
Getting Emotional
Since the last stroke, I sometimes get a bit emotional. When people ask how I am and they say nice things, sometimes it can make me cry. But then I’ve been through a lot with the death of C and our youngest son and the strokes haven’t helped.
But then I’ve always been a bit like that. This piece is from the book I wrote about life with C.
There are quite a few people, places and events that have radically altered the way that I think and how I conduct my life. One event was the death of Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia. He committed suicide by setting himself on fire in Wenceslas Square on January the nineteenth, 1969, as a protest against the Soviet invasion.
I swore to C that one day, I would stand in Wenceslas Square in a totally free and liberated Czechoslovakia.
With the coming of Go, British Airways low-cost airline started by Barbara Cassani, Prague was suddenly a short flight away from Stansted. I should have gone earlier, as the Velvet Revolution that had ousted the Soviet-backed Communist regime had been ten years before.
But I hadn’t and I regret that.
We stayed at the Hoffmeister, which has all the charm and service expected of a Relais & Châteaux hotel. It was seriously good and from reading reports on the Internet, it still appears to be.
The weekend was our thirty-third wedding anniversary, but I have no recollection of where or what we ate on the seventh. All I do know is that the food and wine was excellent throughout the time we were in Prague.
But it was to stand in Wenceslas Square that was one of the main reasons that we had gone to Prague.
I cried!
And I cried buckets!
Will I ever be able to do the same in Harare, Rangoon and the many other places in this world, where people are oppressed and murdered by the state?
I wrote that in probably about January 2008 soon after C died. Do I feel the same now? Perhaps, I actually feel stronger about the last statement, as there are other places I could add to the list.
I sometimes wonder how C felt about Jan Palach! She booked that trip and she knew how I felt. But remember too, than he was only 15 days older than she was!
Perhaps I should return to Prague? I will only do that, when there are no more demons in my mind, dragons to slay and goals to fulfil.
In other words, I never will return!
The Anonymous Widower 