28 April 2010

Work continues on the wet room and  the path and the engineer came and fixed the chair -it turned out to be just a loose cable.

I received an e-mail today from Patrick Joyce who has been selected by the MND Association as a serious face of MND. Patrick is an artist who was diagnosed pretty much the same time as I was. He can still walk are as use of his hands and arms although like mine they are limited. Despite this Patrick has decided that, before he dies, he will paint 100 portraits, of, what the MND Association described as Incurable Optimists. He has completed three portraits – his wife, his urologist and Sarah Ezekiel, last year’s Face of MND, who is the subject of ‘ Sarah’s Story.’ Patrick has done me the honour of asking if I will become the fourth subject. As I said in my reply, I wondered if I really qualified but, not wishing to be churlish, I agreed. As requested I have sent some head and shoulder photographs for him to look at. If these are not satisfactory I would try to get Smiler take one or two more when he comes on Friday.

29 April 2010

Graham Smith very kindly came round this afternoon to get me started on WordPress so that I can eventually make all my own entries on this blog. According to Richard the text is no problem, it is what I choose to describe as the ‘ twiddly bits’ – the Anecdotes; Videos; Photos and Jokes which include photos -which can apparently take hours.

30 April 2010

I had a lovely day out with son, Smiler. The idea, as much as anything, was to give a brief respite to  carer Number one..We drove through the picturesque Lavenham to Sudbury in Suffolk to visit Gainsborough’s House. It has a very fine collection of his painting and as well some of the artists associated with him.(including a rather strange pale Ruebens). Smiler is particularly interested in this artist as he was a contemporary of the Welsh artist, Parry, who is the subject of Smiler’s very beautiful art book which was published last year.

The house itself is in fine condition and was obviously quite smart in its day. Gainsborough had no money and was the son of a weaver who he had married well and was therefore able to live in reasonable style. Fortunately the museum.  had  installed a wheelchair lift so walking around the exhibition was no great problem for me. We then had lunch at a little cafe nearby before stopping off in a pub garden for coffee and a cigar.

A delightful excursion allowing some of that, so essential, quality time between father and son

On the home front the boys had finished the wheelchair path to house and the wet room now only awaits the floor which I gather will be laid next Tuesday