I'm back again in the land of the walking upright people, in hospital I see most of my room mates lying down or at best sitting. I've been feeling a bit better this time around for some reason. Maybe it's all the meds and the physio working in sync or maybe I'm just feeling good, who knows, I asked the doctors and they don't.

Because I was feeling a bit better I decided that it was a good time to test my endurance, this is never a good idea when I'm on my own but I'm not one for doing things by halves. Across the road from the hospital is a shopping center and in the middle of it is a coffee shop, not a great coffee shop but it would do for now. My mission was to walk from the front door of the hospital to the coffee shop with just my cane without stopping for a rest. To make life a bit more difficult I had to carry my shoulder bag, full of a weeks worth of washing, and my laptop, total weight 14 pounds.

It all started off okay, the ground outside the hospital is fairly level, and every step coaxed another one and I developed an early rhythm. The footpath then sloped away from me so I had to adjust my gait to compensate, this caused fatigue in one of the muscles and it all seemed a bit too much all of a sudden. I of course kept going, I could have turned around and waited for my lift at the hospital but I didn't. I gathered my strength and ploughed on down to the main road and hoped for a red light at the pedestrian crossing, that way I'd be able to rest. This of course didn't happen and my way was cleared by several little green men. I've waited 41 years for this to happen, a green light all the way, and when it does happen I'm begging for a red light in my head, is that irony? I kept my back straight and put one foot in front of the other and ploughed on slowly.

The entrance to the shopping center was about a hundred yards from the road, downhill on a footpath through the car park. This ment total concentration and the possibility of being hit by a car, Cork shoppers are not good drivers. This was going to be a tough leg of the journey, made tougher by people handing me advertising pamphlets and money off vouchers, I took the deals and ploughed on one step at a time keeping my focus on the door.

When I got to the door I could smell coffee, I can get a whiff of good arabica a mile off. There was a lot of people on the mall. At this stage I'm really in a lot of pain and my legs are nearly gone to sleep. I have to avoid being knocked sideways of I'd fall, the slightest touch would do it. The thing about my epic walk was that it had to be a walk and not a limp or a hitch or a leg drag and so far I was walking so again I ploughed on down the mall and turned into the new section and saw my target, the not so good coffee shop. One careful step at a time I got closer and closer until finally my legs refused to take another step and I had to stop, that was it my muscles were spent and not one more step could I take until they recovered. I flopped onto a bench and felt gutted. I counted the 12 inch floor tiles between my bench and the nearest chair in the not so good coffee shop and there were 14 of them, that's fourteen feet between me and a not so good cup of coffee, the distance between happiness and blind despair...for anyone who wanted to know is just fourteen feet.

I sat there and thought had I done too much, and how long it would be untill my legs recovered enough to carry on. I realised how luckey I was that the shoping center had benches scattered around or I would be on the floor and unable to get up. All the time I kept counting the floor tiles and watched the whole world take sub standard coffee while I sat and stewed.

It was an hour before I could walk again and I headed for the shopping trollies and took one to act as a walking frame and to carry my bags. I still felt bad, like I had failed miserably, even though I knew there was nothing I could do to change anything I still felt awfull. I turned back to the not so good coffee shop and out of the corner of my eye I spotted another coffee shop that I never knew existed, that's where the wonderfull aroma of arabica was comming from. It was a good coffee shop and miles better that the not so good one. Was this some kind of fate working on my behalf, did some celistial being decide that I deserved a good cup of coffee for my efforts. I'm not a religious type or even very spiritual but I reckon the great god of java was looking out for me that day and knew I deserved a decent cup of coffee.

So what did I learn from this little journey. Well first I found out that I can walk farther than I used to and second, a good cup of coffee is worth waiting for.

This time it's war

It seems like ages since I sat and typed a bit, it's longer than I planned. I wanted to keep this blog as a regular part of my week but things get in the way. Nothing dramatic, just normal stuff that everyone has in their life like family and friends, I feel it's more important for me to spend time with them rather than hiding myself away and tapping away at my laptop like a hermit. Today is a good example of that, I'm batch cooking for the week so my wife can come in from work and everything will be ready, I can sit down now because I'm just waiting for the chicken to finish. On any other day people phone me or call by, and I love when people do both, and it's kind of rude to start typing when they're in the room, especially if they brought biscuits.

This week a buddy of mine brought me some duck eggs so we had some poached on tuna for lunch, I'll take that any day over an hour of typing. The same day another old friend called by and we'll be fishing the local rivers real soon together. A friend I shared a flat with in Cork years ago came by and sparked an interest I have that could well lead to a bit of a job. Also a kind soul bequeathed a van to me so a bit of my time had to be spent on that. What I mean is that as much as I love doing this blog my family and friends are more important but I reckon you all ready figured that out.

I've been spending a lot of time recording as well. I got a lot done during the week so I'll have a lot of editing and mastering to do in hospital. I try to record as organically as possible and not use electronic trickery to polish the tracks and that can be very frustrating and time consuming but I like the finished sound, to me it's an honest sound. Not a lot of people agree with me so I'll never go platinum any day soon but I like what I like and don't see why I should compromise just because the big record companies do. I'm not a record producer or anything but I like recording songs and let the lyric come across and not crowd the melody so the listener can really hear what the songwriter wanted to say.

I'm back in hospital on Monday but I'm not feeling too bad, I think the new physio I'm doing has helped a lot. The relapse this time around hasn't been as severe as it has been in the past so I think it's time to declare war on my C.I.D.P. I'm not so stupid that I think I can cure the damn thing but what I am going to do is increase the physio and the general daily demands on my body to see if I can improve my mobility during the month, because to be honest being in a wheelchair a lot of the time is a bit of a drag, and my daughter keeps threatening to bring me up a hill and let me go if I don't let her shop, and she likes to shop.

I've set myself a target that the physio in hospital reckons might be beyond my range but she's only got four years training and another 12 years on the job experience, what would she know..I might be setting myself up for a big disappointment here but here's my target.

I want to walk from my house to fountain in town and back totally unaided and walking properly all the way, no limping or hyper extending allowed. To most people this is a stroll and no problem but for me it's much farther than my two hundred and seventy yards with crutches limit. I think it's a reasonable target, I'm not sure exactly how far it is and I don't really want to measure it in case the figure scares me off. I want to do this within the next month. So before I go back to hospital next time I want to have walked that distance. If I can do that then I'll raise the bar the next month and if I can't then it's back to the drawing board, and if I totally break down my doctors in Cork assure me they can fix me. I'll try and keep a record of things as they happen to me and I hope my friends keep calling and encouraging me, because without my family and friends I could do nothing.

sometimes I'm fine

This week has been a mixed week. It seems one day I feel okay and the next I feel rubbish. I don't really know why, my normal routine hasn't changed all that much. On saturday I felt really bad and to make it worse I was stuck inside all day and I really wanted to go out, every time I got ready to go the clouds would blacken and the rain would drop down as if it was mocking me. I don't mind rain normally but rain on a wheelchair when I'm in a bad mood would be a serious no-no. After putting my power-chair away and taking my coat etc. off the rain would go and the sun would creep over the clouds tempting me out again, and I fell for it three times before I gave up.

I turned my mind to do a bit of recording and again my plan was turned inside out. The mic and laptop were set up and my recording program was ready to go when a good friend called by, not that I wasn't delighted to see him and his wife but it threw my train of thought for a bit. When I did get back to work, after they left, some rotten little brat outside my window had found a stick and a can and spent a half hour or more hitting one off the other up and down the street. I'll never chastise a six year old for having fun so I just sat there and waited for him to finish, I'm just glad I live in a place where kids that young can still play safely outside. Then I got a brainwave, seeing as my mic was picking up hie stick and can song then maybe I should record the sound and use it in a song. I opened the window, put the mic up, hit record and the little brat stopped and followed the sound of his mum instead calling him for supper, I was beaten again. I get days like this, I reckon everyone does, I just try to grin and bear it.

I did a bunch of physio earlier in the week and as much as I enjoy excercise and sport, this really knocked me on my backside. The kind of physio I do is supposed to do this so it was no surprise, but when I was feeling bad to start with it was difficult to get my head straight to do anything else constructive done. I got a bit of recording done but it was crap so I binned it. I wrote some lyrics and they weren't much good for anything I'm working on now so they got filled under 'later'. I did cook some pretty good meals but I kinda have to eat and I like good food, fresh and seasonal.

The week wasn't a dead loss or anything but I feel I could have done more. Last night I went to a Rambling House session in Colemans Well and sang a few songs. I'd never done a rambling house before and I can honestly say I had a ball. I heard a bunch of songs that I hadn't heard in years and that's never a bad thing. I'm going out tonight to play a bit of music so this week is starting good and I have tickets for Mick Hanly on saturday night and that's going to be great. So it's a case of roll on the summer and bring on the good times.

There's always the memories

I'd really love to be playing live music every night. I think most people who play an instrument would say the same, there's no feeling like it in the world that people will allow you to express yourself through the medium of music and sit and listen. Jack Black said it in one of his movies, it's all about playing one great show. The one great show can be different for everyone and it's certainly differert from a performers point of view than an audience point of view. I've known bands and musicians to say that their greatest show was in front of very few people and of course a lot of music lovers will tell you that the nights they remember most were at a small venue where nobody turned up but the few who did had a great night.

For me though the show I remember the most was with the bamd All the Presidents Men. We were booked by Southampton Uni to play a mixed show with another couple of bands. Everything was on time and really well organised and the venue room was great. We hit the stage and played the usuall three chords we'd been knocking out at every show but for some reason or other everything felt great that night. I remember my microphone stopped working for a few seconds so I just shouted the lyric and the audience joined in 'till the sound tech got it sorted. Nothing that could have gone wrong that night would have stopped me from having the time of my life. There was the very wonderful Laura who was forced onto stage beside me to join me in a song which was great, and every time I visited Southhampton we've done the same, and we will again. The crowd cheared and sang and danced, everyone had fun and we all went home nice and safe.


Everyone has a great show or great gig memory, mine was that night in Southampton. I plan on having a lot more nights just like that one and the only thing that can stop me is if I really believe that night's like that are just memories, nights like that can just as easily be dreams and wishes.