It’s been a while since my last post. That’s due to several reasons: holiday, work, taking my son to Uni, volunteering at races, running a mmidnight marathon, and the main one – parkinson’s.
We drove Buster the campervan down to Switzerland via the tunnel for a week with some friends in the pretty village of Saas Grund. The landscape is stunning, with glaciers on either side of the valley. The camping fees include free bus and cable car tickets so it was easy to get up into the mountains. One highlight was a night spent up in a mountain hut, which is quite luxurious really with thick duvets and a three course meal. The night up high was needed in order to get an early start in the morning for a trip to a nearby peak called the Jegihorn, involving some Via Ferrata.
For those who don’t know what Via Ferrata is, it is scrambling up a mountain clipped onto a steel cable often using metal rungs or pins hammered into the rock. It lets you take routes that are quite exposed. I didn’t take many photos while on the mountain because I didn’t trust myself not to drop my phone and it was a long way down!
Nearing the final climb the path splits. The hard path takes you via a suspension bridge to a hard climb. By this stage I was feeling really tired so we took the slightly easier route to the top, but Nige went out on the bridge with the Puckfarkinsons flag.
We scrambled to the top and had chance to admire the views which were spectacular. The path back down was pretty steep but we had to get a move on as thunder storms were forecast and it’s not ideal to be on top of a mountain holding onto a steel cable with lightning in the air!
After we returned home it’s been a busy couple of months at work, and I’m finding that it takes more and more of my energy to cope with that at the moment. I did take a day off to take my son off to Swansea University which is a really nice campus next door to the Gower peninsula. Luckily he’s got a disabled access room which is at least twice the size of a standard room. Unfortunately it’s on the 7th floor which on moving in day meant some hard work as the lift queues were quite long!
A while ago Budgie and I entered the “Midnight Marathon” on the South Downs for a giggle. Without much training we didn’t have high hopes. Unfortunately Budgie suffered from stomach issues and had to drop out after 12km. I thought I would get to half way and retire but at the checkpoint I felt (relatively) fine so carried on until the finish – which was an unexpected bonus, although it took three cups of tea before I felt vaguely human about 3am (it was the midnight marathon after all!)
The title of this blog entry is based on a shipping forecast t-shirt (I have a thing for t-shirts!) and seems quite apt. The disease is still progressing. My hands (especially the left) get stiff when the meds have worn off or aren’t working so typing is difficult. My voice is getting even softer which means repeating myself more often. The digestion is slower – which impacts on the effectiveness of the meds. I know it’s still early days yet – but I do wonder what the future holds knowing the only direction of travel is downhill.