AND ANOTHER TWO WEEKS GO BY...ALMOST UNEVENTFULLY

Monday, 10th September.

Janet continues to improve in mind (with only minor lapses) and in body. She has been on anti-depressants now for 10 days and from personal experience, I know that these will help her recover from her "black moods".

Her Occupational Therapist and Physiotherapist are very happy with her progress and she sees each of them (either Elsa or Susanna and Margaret respectively) once a week. They seem very on the ball and know how to stretch Janet both physically and mentally.

Last week after Janet's session with the O.T., it was mentioned that there was a Peebles Stroke Group (led by a knowledgeable volunteer and supported by a dozen or so ex-stroke patients) which met every Wednesday at Hay Lodge Hospital. The O.T. and myself encouraged Janet to attend this Group and indeed after her O.T. session last Wednesday, she went along to join the Group and found that she actually enjoyed it. Hurrah! At last, Janet could talk to other people who had been through what she had experienced and could empathise with her situation. Janet resolved to go back to the Group as often as she could.

On Sunday night, 8 days ago, Janet had been up most of the night with toothache - a really bad ache in a wisdom tooth, which had bothered her on and off for some time but which had been getting distinctly worse, with the pain only being eased a bit by the medication she was taking. It got so bad that Sunday night, that Janet asked for some liquid morphine, which she'd had prescribed for her general condition after her stroke. That did ease the pain but she phoned the dentist on the Monday morning and made an appointment for that afternoon. The tooth in question was extracted quite painlessly and Janet was ecstatic afterwards. She was pain free!

Yesterday, Sunday, was our 11th wedding anniversary and we went for a late lunch to Coltmans, a favourite restaurant of ours at the bottom of Peebles High Street. We had a lovely meal and were back home by 5pm, but only after listening to our taxi driver giving us a rundown on all the building developments currently proposed around the town.

Today saw us drive to South Gyle where Janet picked a rather lovely skirt to wear at her granddaughter, Caitlin's, 18th birthday party in two weeks time.

I'm golfing tomorrow morning, with Janet at her O.T. in the afternoon, and on Wednesday we're through to Edinburgh very early, where I'm dropping Janet off at her sister Margaret's and I'm going golfing - again - at Bruntsfield Links, which according to Google has the fourth oldest golfing society in the world! I'm set to play with one of my oldest friends, Gordon Sharpe, who I first met and worked beside (in the Bank of Scotland) in 1970. That's 48 years ago, which in my book is quite a long time ago!