Deirdre Geraghty

I seem to be fighting a cold probably because I went out quite a few times over the weekend and the weather is a bit chilly. With COPD (emphysema) and asthma l have to be careful. So I won’t be going out for a bit unless I really have to and hope the nice weather will come back soon.

I went to my tai chi class. I really enjoy it. It sort of flows nicely to the music which has really surprised me as I have never appreciated it when I have seen people doing it. It is a really good class and I was saddened that I was the only person in the class this week. It would be really good if more people would come to it as it is good fun and it is really important that we support our new community centre. The Silver Road Community Centre has it’s own website now and many other things happening.

I saw Simon from the Wellbeing Service for the second time. It would be really good if I could control the anxiety l feel when I am going somewhere which makes me rock, pace up and down or shuffle from foot to foot much worse than usual and the Wellbeing Service help with that. He hit the nail on the head when he noticed the events that make it worse are those which are beyond my control – those where I don’t know what l am doing. That is interesting!

I saw my GP yesterday. Despite taking the 10 mg tablets for a month my blood pressure is still up so this time she has talked about life style changes like daily exercise. She has also told me to give up salt. I love salt and knew I should give it up so she has given me the push l needed so – no more salt!

I don’t buy anything online apart from my groceries. It took a very long for me to learn and several of my friends sat with me for many months for me to manage it. Even still – it took well over a year before I could do it without shaking all over and it is only now that it is a relatively pain free operation.

I texted my son yesterday to ask him how he had got on at his job interview the day before. I heard back that he was in Wales at a corporate event on the first day of a new job. He has taken the position of IT Project Support Engineer and, although he will be based close to home, he will do a lot of travelling. Well done him!

I woke up just after midnight and tried to get back to sleep realising before long that it wasn’t going to happen. So I watched some television and at 4.00 am l went downstairs and had a bath and washed my hair. At 5.00 l made coffee and porridge on which I had sprinkled pumpkin, sunflower and milled flax seeds. In a minute l will get on my exercise bike which I haven’t done for some time.

I woke up this morning with pain in my abdomen and dreaming of being at the community centre and making our Easter  ‘twig’ trees. We are hoping to sell them so they have to look good. I am taking it easy for a bit and hope the pain in my abdomen will continue to subside.

I went to my exercise (sitting on a chair) class at the community centre. As before it went very well and I really enjoyed it. Chris, who takes the class, gave us a demonstration of tai chi which is when I found out that I have been doing tai chi and not Pilates. That saying ‘l didn’t know what l was doing’ comes to mind.

Yesterday my gardener Janet came to do the gardens. She comes three times a year, cuts things back, weeds, tidies up. It always looks so good when she has been. They used to be a right mess, just weeds, but a few years back we put limestone chips in the front and in the back we put gravel and planted honeysuckle around the patio and shrubs down the side. They have looked great ever since.