The weather this morning was stormy and windy, exactly as predicted by the forecasters but although awoken by my radio just after 6.00am I stayed in bed for half an hour which I suspect I will do every day now that the nights are longer and the days are gloomy. It was delightful to have the company of my son and daughter-in-law yesterday afternoon as we watched the rugby together and shared some family jokes and reminiscences with each other. Last night I was delighted to see there was a compilation of some of the best performances from this season’s Prom concerts and a piece that gave particular delight was the one given on the sitar by Anoushka Shankar, the daughter of Ravi Shankar who did much to bring the particular instrument of the sitar to the ears of Western audiences. Later on today, I have an appointment for some routine medical monitoring to which I will certainly go by car but beforehand it is touch and go whether or not I decide to go for a walk on foot because I have no real desire to get drenched. Having said that, when I started walking down to town years and years ago, I did not really look at the weather but followed what may be the Nordic maxim that ‘there is not bad weather, just inappropriate clothing’ I think as well that the weather gods must have smiled upon me because on all of the occasions when I pushed Meg up and down the hill in her wheelchair, I can only recall one when we got absolutely soaked to the skin. But even on that occasion, our return home coincided with a visit of a couple of carers who quickly divested Meg of her wet outerwear and dressed her in some nice warm clothing.
In the women’s rugby, the Irish team must be really licking their wounds this morning and wondering if the outcome of the match would have been different. Some video footage had emerged on a French player appearing to bite an Irish opponent and this was reported to the referee. If the referee had acted upon this information and referred back to the video referee, the French player would almost certainly have been sent to the ‘sin bin’ for at least 10 minutes if not 20 and, under these circumstances, it is quite common for one team to score against their weakened opponents. So, the Irish can feel somewhat aggrieved and that the eventual outcome of the closely fought match could well have resulted in their victory, rather than the French. France is now playing England in the semifinals next weekend, the other semifinal match being between Canada and New Zealand. The world athletic championships are also taking place at the same time, I think in Tokyo, but this is not evoking the same amount of attention that it normally does, perhaps because of the transmission times. But I gather that the Jamaican men are re-establishing the dominance that they used to enjoy in sprinting and the closely fought contests are often between the Jamaican and the (black) American sprinters.
Knowing it was to be a colder day today, I donned my ‘Malaga’ football shirt, bought from a street market in Spain and brought into use when I know the weather is turning colder. In the morning I turned my attention to getting some dental appointments sorted out. Normally, I would see a hygienist followed in three months’ time by a visit to the dentist herself. But I am rather out of the run of appointments as things were rather neglected as they had to be whilst I was caring for Meg in her dying months. But I was considerably dismayed to discover that the earliest appointments I was offered to see both the hygienist and the dentist were in five months’ time. I accepted both of these appointments but the evident thought crosses my mind whether I can be seen earlier by another, more locally based dentist. So, I may be forced to make some enquiries to see what is available more locally. In the middle of the day, after collecting my newspaper I attended my local surgery for a routine medical monitoring appointment. When this was concluded I went off to Droitwich to have a coffee and a walk around with my Droitwich friend. I handed over some health-related internet material that I thought might helpful, although with the proviso that one had to treat any material found on the web with the appropriate degree of caution. In the course of our walking around, we decided to visit the cafe which Meg and I often attended in Droitwich where we would take coffee once a week and occasionally a light lunch. But we were dismayed to discover, via a notice on the door that this cafe was in the throes of closing which was a source of some sadness and regret as Meg and I were well known and made to feel welcome by the proprietor in our weekly visit this news coming on top of the announcement that my favourite cosmetics store in Bromsgrove is also in the process of closing. Before I actually went out on the road, I discovered quite by accident a video on YouTube which I found both informative as well as quite helpful. This video was by a neuroscientist who had made it her specialty to look at the effects of the grieving process on brain chemistry. Utilising much recent science on the biochemistry of the brain, she argued that when a couple become committed to each over a long period (as in a marriage) then this actually alters their brain chemistry. So when the couple are separated e.g. by death, then the brain has to go through a process of reorganisation and this involved time as a learning process. We are so used to thinking of grief as just operating in the ’emotion’ parts of the brain and not on the cognitive functions so this approach is thought provoking. The neuroscientist had written a book called ‘The Grieving _‘ and one would have thought, intuitively, that the missing word was ‘Heart’ but it was actually ‘Brain’ not ‘Heart’ I rather liked her no-nonsense, scientifically based approach and may well hunt out and then purchase (and naturally read) her book.