retirement

As usual, the pressures of modern life, dictated that I could not upgrade my blog for the past few days! Is this modern life in the fast lane, or am I just too involved in what goes on around me!

It is hugely tempting to just get down, turn off the television and just type like a madman. Truth is, I must be slightly cooked, as I definitely need to see my psychiatrist once a week. This is for 2 reasons:-

She is hugely easy on the eye, and very friendly to boot! We often go to lunch together, and she is one of the few people who actually understand me when I try to communicate. That must be on of the biggest blessings of being divorced - I felt finally that I was not an impact on the human race, whilst my head shrink gives me the feeling that I matter! I find that since I recovered from my coma, that most people that I meet tend to nod and smile as if they have understood, but when you look at their faces, there is no glimmer that they have understood much - if anything!

I am particularly enjoying my membership of the LDS Church, based locally in Richards Bay. This is District Headquarters, with the original Bay ward having grown to around 350 active members each week. We were split into a District comprising 5 branches, and 1 twig that is dependant on the mother ship at Richards Bay.

These branches are visited pretty well once a month by the District Council, of which I am the senior councillor. As such I get to tour the District and to give the final talk in Sacrament meetings.

The one blessing(?) is that these "new" branches - eSikhawini, Port Durnford, Nseleni and Ngwelezane/eMpangeni - do not have the built in loudspeaker system that exists at the Richards Bay chapel. Luckily the chapels are not huge and even my voice can be understood at the back of the room! I have had comments after my talks that what I have said has been enlightening, and by the way, heard at the back o0f the hall.

I think that the main blessing is that at the outlying branches are outside of the limit of polluted air in the Bay, and in the Bay, I find that the air tends to make my diaphram constrict and I battle with breathing. This is as a result of brain damage when I was run down. My brain connections to my muscles was damaged, and reconnected whilst I was in my coma. THAT is the reason that I can no longer catch tennis (or any) balls! I can see them coming, but they bounce off my palm before the instruction to close my fingers, gets to my actual fingers!