‘All play and no work NOW”!

The morning began like any other Winter’s morning and I wasn’t ‘overly keen’ to get out of my cosy and comfortably warm bed but, at least, it was sunny and bright outside, with the frost glistening on the lawn ‘as though’ it had been lightly covered with glistening diamond icing; The alarm clock awoke me from my very deep sleep and I arose with about as much enthusiasm as a prisoner destined for the guillotine!

The alarm was still on ‘snooze’ and would add to my ‘already stressed life’, because I was now in the bathroom and about to have a wet shave, before it annoyingly reminded me again that it was time to get out of my empty bed!

Besides still feeling very tired, which was understandable after I had just encountered some stressful moments(‘my Nan had just died and whilst my mum travelled 250 miles away to attend the funeral, I volunteered to look after her two little puppy dogs- “I mean, what harm could two little ‘Daschund’ puppy dogs do”? One of them was a little quiet/a slightly timid but a very obedient and good boy, whilstlu the ‘other one’ had been sent to me via ‘Satan’ to test my physical and mental abilities and the dog very happily ‘took on’ this new challenge and in his eyes you could almost read ‘bring it on sucker’!

“When does this ‘bloody dog’ ever sleep”? I very wearily and annoyingly said, and I dared rest my weary head on my pillow, which I managed to do for about two hours, before the barking became too loud and consistent -‘Yap yap yap yap yap yap ‘all through the night’! I was constantly up and down trying, but failing, to settle him down for the night,‘so that’, I could get some very peaceful, and ‘much needed’ sleep! ‘I know’ , I thought to myself, ‘I will walk him in the morning and I’ll ‘sacrifice’ my lunch break and return home at lunchtime to walk the dogs and I’ll walk them twice in the evening(‘’first thing”) when I get home and then ‘last thing’ before I go to bed! “Yeah, that should work”, I said to myself with desperation in my tired voice because I was both physically and mentally worn out now, not just by the dogs, but also because I had already had a stressful time ‘of late’(‘I/we, my Fiancée and I had just bought our first house together and I had been very busy decorating it, and I was very busy at work having just become the ‘Stock Controller’ with the added responsibility for buying and selling’ gold jewellery for our show room/store.

I could proudly think about and look at what I had achieved- ‘from growing-up in caravans, and then council houses’, to now jointly owning a semi-detached bungalow, which was 8 years old, with two little gardens and its own driveway and we also owned our cars, but they weren’t anything special, but gaining and earning the money to pay for the driving lessons and then pay for the cost of the test itself really makes you appreciate what you’ve got and when I/we eventually passed our driving test’s it was a very joyous occasion, and then with the addition of our own cars, our freedoms were expanded even further!

LIFE was seemingly going okay, UNTIL ‘one evening after work’ I made the mistake of ‘wishing that I had more money’, because I already had what a lot of people would be really happy with, and despite the good health that I had, all of the unhindered movements that I made and all of the items that I owned, I would still say to myself “I wish that I had more money”!……….

‘BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH k surgery on my brain and I didn’t really regain full consciousness until May the following year(‘my Fiancée sat by the side of my hospital bed on New Year’s Eve and when I, very fortunately and gratefully, regained consciousness, I was attached to several wires and tubes and was hoping that the hospital were creating a new super hero! “Sadly they weren’t, and I lay motionless in this bed with ‘these wires’ attached to me via these bleeping machines and I felt like an old car engine that needed to be repaired and retuned”!

I ‘cared not’ for money and money had absolutely no use here- “I had lost every physical ability that I had, my independence had gone and I wanted them back! “I wanted my hair to grow back especially, and I had to firstly complete some facial exercises to rebuild my collapsed left side, which was eventually regained, but many abilities that I took for granted were difficult to regain and required more time, like breathing on my own, being able to see clearly, speaking and reading!

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘It’s no good crying over spilt milk’? Well, that phrase seemed to be very appropriate here,

“The majority of us ‘may wish for nicer items but isn’t that just being greedy”? Aren’t our existing items good enough”? Isn’t it a natural reaction/desire to want something better? ‘This experience taught me a lesson that I’ve never forgotten and that is ‘Your health takes priority over any wealth”!

“I ‘fought’ to stay alive and I physically worked very hard to try to regain some of my abilities- I am 56 years of age now and I’ve exceeded my expected existence, “perhaps it’s all of the alcohol I drink and it’s acting like a preservative”? Seriously though, it’s regular daily exercise and a healthy ‘ish’ diet!

I never regained some of my abilities, ‘no matter how hard I tried’, but I can manage to manoeuvre/shuffle or crawl around and I’m like a monkey that attracts many cats and dogs and I often get a cat on my back that enjoys the ride; Dogs just stare, but I fear that one day a dog will ‘cock his leg up’ and wee on my arm! I’m also easy target practice for those ‘dive-bombing’ birds!

“So, ‘be careful what you wish for’, especially if you want a new ‘set of wheels’, because you might get a new wheelchair!!!