Deirdre Geraghty

I am struggling to get up early these days. This morning I woke up at 5.30 in the middle of a dream – again at 6.00 ish and another dream and the next thing it is 10 past 8 and I rush to get up. I have been feeling dizzy ever since. I have now had breakfast but still dizzy – will wait for it to pass – hopefully it will.

It is true that when you get older the time speeds past. I thought it was fast when I was working – one minute Friday and the next Monday. But when you’re a pensioner the time speeds by even faster.

It was very moving to see the survivors of Auschwitz return to the place where such horrors had happened. The worry being any form of racism including antisemitism. We must never allow it.

I have to go back to see the GP in one month’s time to check that my blood pressure tablets are working and probably that my cholesterol levels are down so I have to be good!

It’s the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I stayed up to watch a programme called ‘Shoah: First Era’ part 1 of 2 which was shown on BBC 4 last night. It was a very long programme and I dozed off a few times but I saw the most of it. The interviewer spoke to so many witnesses – people who were there – Jews and non Jews. I was pretty shocked by the fact that the onlookers, who did speak of fear, but were so matter of fact about the trains full of Jews going to their deaths. Shocking! We must never forget!

I received my low fat spread with my grocery order and made a sandwich with it. This was to comply with my doctor’s instructions to change to a low fat diet. Anyway, the low fat spread was horrible. I tried but there is no way l can stick to that so I went back to spreadable butter. I have ordered a different low fat spread with my next order – well, you do have to try!

Back to the weekend again. It is very cold but the sun is out so I decided to chance it to the corner shop. It was hard to breathe but the sun stayed with me which helped a lot and fairly soon l was back in the warm again. Phew!

I saw my sister Erin on ‘Birds of a feather’ last night. She broke her pelvis but is now back on her feet. She has been doing a lot of theatre work but it is really nice to see her back on television.

I overslept again this morning. I stayed up to watch the television awards last night – although I did doze off for 20 minutes half way through. So this morning I am trying to catch up with everything that needs to be done before my new cleaner starts today. There are now so many chores l am unable to do l would be totally lost without one.

Most mornings, well, when I wake early ish and my back’s not bad, after my breakfast l get on my exercise bike. I have it set up in my guest room facing the window with a TV placed so I can look out of the window with my left eye and watch the television with my right one. It is true to say that sitting on an exercise machine is very boring so this set up helps greatly. Even so, l can’t face doing longer than 20 minutes at a time and I get saddle sore so I do this several times before I start my day unless, of course, l oversleep.