118. The Final Countdown…
I’ve got it cornered.
The In-tray
The Still-to-do List is down to one sheet of paper; the accumulated detritus of my years at Thrush Woods has been herded into a corner of the ICT room and sits tamely waiting to be sorted. I’ve found no untaught children stacked away in boxes, so it looks like I’ve got away with it again.
96. First, catch your Parkie…
Last Friday, ActorLaddie and I went to a conference organised by the Cure Parkinson’s Trust Conference. The theme was ‘Curing Parkinson’s’, which sounds a pretty good idea to me. Half a dozen experts came from across the globe to explain what is going on at the moment in the way of research.
It was inspirational.
95. How charmingly sweet you sing…
We had our own little Glee Club at Liverpool Street station yesterday evening. A dozen youngsters from the Music and Dance Academy donned Parkinson’s UK t-shirts and sang their hearts out for two hours, bless them, to raise funds for PUK. They could belt it out, those kids; a great attention-grabber even down at the other end of the concourse where I was rattling a bucket.
89. Running through the open door Part 2… this time it’s personal…
The Agricultural Correspondent has been wheeled out again. Just as we get to an exciting bit in the storyline – has Helen Archer finally seen through Rotten Rob? – we are kept on tenterhooks by some bit of farming nonsense. So Tony and David Archer mooch around the cattle market discussing the merits of buying organic suckler cows and we are made to wait for the resolution of the TunaGate affair.
What’s good enough for The Archers is good enough for you lot. So before I tell you what was in the letter from Hammersmith Hospital, I’m going to share some gardening news. If by any chance you didn’t read Wednesday’s blog – number eighty eight – now would be a good time to nip off and do so; otherwise what follows will make no sense. We’ll wait for you by discussing fencing.
88. I see me running through that open door…
I don’t remember anything about the film itself, though of course I have seen Dumbo again since then. The only memory of my first trip to the pictures is Pa trying to hurry me off the double-decker bus while I’m busy being travel sick over the conductor. So perhaps not the magical night he’d intended.
If only I’d had Dumbo’s feather, we could have flown home.
73. Tunnel vision
Yesterday was very interesting, in a boring kind of way.
You might remember that, in the early part of the year, I participated in a drugs trial. There’s more about it here and here, if you can be arsed to look.
In essence, the lovely Dr LaMancha and his team are trying to see if a particular drug, currently in use for another condition, has any effect on the progress of Parkinson’s. The trial is now over and the results are still being analysed: a painstaking task. I asked about it today, as Dr LM prepared to inject me with radioactivity.
72. The kindness of strangers…
Last weekend I was, in truth, feeling pretty low. I realise that this will come as a bit of a shock to anyone who knows me. You’ll have stopped reading my blog – as instructed – before the whole cat-food/porridge/iPod fiasco. You didn’t miss much – it got a bit wimpy from that point.
71. We are verses out of rhythm; couplets out of time…
The truth is, my anonymous blog is mostly onymous. My family, colleagues and other mates know my secret identity: largely because I’ve told them. In general, I’m pretty rubbish at keeping secrets. No strength of character. Expose me to a child learning the violin and in no time at all, I’ll tell you where the priests are hiding.
69. Off I went with a trumpety, trump…
July, last year.
“So are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” said Mrs Jolly-Colleague.
We were at Mrs Domestic-Colleague’s house for an end-of-term splurge of good food and gossip. Mrs D-C bakes-off against the best. Her head-to-head with Jill Archer is the stuff of legends and minstrels still sing ballads to her victorious Simnel cake.
67. Miss Otis regrets…
Dear Mrs Bloggysphere,
I am sorry that Mrs Jellywoman did not do her blog last weekend. She was very wibbly and might have been a Health and Safety risk as wibbles and keyboards don’t mix.
The Jelly Chronicles 