I had cause to visit our local GP surgery this afternoon, and waiting for the appointment I reflected on how important its been over the last three decades and how fortunate I feel to be healthy.
It’s thirty years, this month, that I sat in that same surgery, aged 27, waiting to tell my doctor that I didn’t want to live any longer, that I couldn’t face another day.
I remember her being totally calm, concerned and listening to what I had to say with real understanding and compassion. She was a lifeline that helped pick me up off the floor, diagnosing clinical depression, signing me off from work for several weeks, and assigning me to see a counsellor.
In those days mental health had a stigma that made it difficult to talk about openly. I remember some time later, after my eventual return to work as a journalist, writing an anonymous piece about my experience, likening it to physical injury, but saying that because its unseen “no one gives you a wheelchair for your broken mind.”
My doctor then got me well again. Over the years I’ve returned to that same surgery many times, for similar mental health struggles, the same doctor until she retired, then a new doctor equally as understanding and compassionate. At times my struggles included self-harm and suicidal thoughts, not easy to read, not easy to write, and believe me not easy to cope with.
John was always there for me throughout these turmoiled times. In terms of his own health he was somebody who never went to the doctor, having no mental or physical health problems.
Ten years ago, the spring of 2013 was a turning point for both of us. John had a stroke. I was diagnosed, through referral from my doctor, with OCD and childhood trauma.
John became a regular patient of a lovely kind family doctor, but despite this his phyiscal health began to decline. At the same time and after many sessions with a brilliant NHS therapist, all at the same GP surgery, my mental health began to improve.
The last decade has been a bit topsy-turvy for both of us: John went on to be diagnosed with dementia; after losing my mum in difficult circumstances I went on to suffer PTSD and severe panic attacks. The same doctor helped John through the start of his dementia. The same therapist helped me overcome my trauma and panic attacks.
I’m mentally hugely better than I’ve been most of my adult life, and lucky to be physically well too. John’s becoming more frail and the reason for today’s visit was a recent fall, and confusion, which tests show were probably due to infection.
It was a real relief to hear from the doctor that this isn’t a further decline in John’s dementia and a course of antibiotics should help him improve.
In these times of daily news of NHS services being overstretched, staff working under incredible pressure and poorly paid, to the doctors and staff of Coleridge Medical Centre over the last 30 years, I applaud you and say thank you – you’re the reason I’m here and healthy, and I’m so happy to be able to write that!
The start of the a new year is a time when many of us feel reflective, certainly I’ve been mulling things over in my head, but trying to express my thoughts in writing is proving more elusive, rewriting this first paragraph over and over.
It was 10 years ago that I started this blog, at a time when I’d just been diagnosed with OCD and was partway through a marathon challenge, hence the Obsessive Compulsive Running title.
In those early days I wrote something almost every week, mental health struggles, dad’s dementia, running, it became a way of life to put it all out there in the public domain.
It was with mixed results, some lovely feedback from friends and family saying how much they enjoyed my writing, but then this after I shared the link on a runner’s forum: “Better to let the whole world think you are boring, than to write a blog and prove them 100% right.”
Ouch!
I decided to perservere, taking the attitude that whilst I might choose to spend my time sitting here writing, there’s no compulsion on anyone to read my words.
But from those early regular posts, in the last few years I’ve written less and less, the inner critic mentally consiging each post to the spike before I’ve even switched the computer on.
Now I’m over-ruling that negative voice and planning to write more, because 2023 is one of those odd years when many significant anniversaries approach, 30 years since I was first signed off from work with depression, 25 years since I completed a major walking challenge, 10 years since being diagnosed with OCD and PTSD from childhood trauma. All significant milestones.
And looking ahead I hope that 2023 will be the year that I run my 100th marathon, which would be truly amazing should it happen.
It’s still a surprise to me that I’ve clocked up so many miles over the years, just as it’s a surprise when I look back to my 27-year-old depressed self, remembering how sad I was inside and how I never thought I’d smile again, and realising how far I’ve come.
So boring or not, my blog is back for 2023 and marathon wise I’ve hit the year running too, as I completed number 97 yesterday, less than 100 miles to go to the 100 – if you’re interested watch this space, no hard feelings if not! Thanks for reading this far and Happy New Year.
I had cause to ring a helpline recently after having a series of panic attacks. The person I spoke to asked if I had anything coming up that would help me relax.
“I’m running three marathons in three days,” I said.
“Have you thought of having a facial instead?” came the reply.
I reflected on this conversation yesterday – World Mental Health Day – driving home from the Atlantic Coast Challenge, a brilliantly organised Votwo event I first did in 2018 when my panic attacks were persistent and at times overwhelming.
They stemmed from life experiences I’ve written about before, and were recently triggered by the ageing poor health and loss of our beloved little terrier dog, Archie, who we’ve had since eight months old and was just a few weeks short of age 18.
As a carer for my husband John, who lives with dementia, seeing Archie’s frailty and John’s in tandem was a double source of anxiety, sapping away at my mental energy.
But out on the North Cornish coast feeling the wind in my face, hearing the waves crashing on the cliffs, seeing surf on golden sandy beaches stretching ahead, tasting the salty air, adrenalin pumping as I jogged along, the anxieties faded away and it was all about being in the moment, one foot in front of the other, nothing else to think about, just the physical energy of keeping going.
It was certainly tough at times, as I knew it would be, but reaching the top of the steepest hills, clambering over boulders and rocks, and finding a spurt of extra energy to make the cut off times gave such an endorphin rush and feeling of elation.
It was great too to have the company of running club team mates this year and the sense of comraderie and mutual support that comes from being with others.
I drove home feeling rejevunated, refreshed, and with a feeling of achievement, these three marathons taking my tally to 94.
And thanks to personal trainer and therapist Tracey Paddon who I’d booked in with for a massage today I got a complimentary relaxing face massage too!
John’s dementia is now reaching the stage where I’m having to review his care package and sadly feel he’s no longer capable of attending daycare, which gave me a welcome break in the week, but these three marathons on the Cornish coast were just what I needed to help me keep going.
At this time for end of year reviews, I thought about mine and realised it’s one that started and ended with rubbish.
It was during the lockdown in January that I began regularly picking up litter around my home village of Tipton St John. It soon became compulsive, a way of keeping clear the footpaths and fields I enjoy walking and running, but fed up seeing trash lying around.
In a short time there was quite a haul, the most common items being cans, bottles (both plastic and glass), crisp packets, sweet wrappers, dog poo bags, cigarette butts, car parts, disposable masks, cardboard cups…even two armchairs abandoned in a field, which the council cleared soon after I reported.
Several people in the village pick up on a regular basis including ITU nurse Lisette Johnston and her husband Clinton, who together came up with the idea for a formal litter picking group Tipton Eager Beavers.
It’s been a pleasure and joy to link up with Lisette and do combined litter picks around the village, together with faithful hound Freddie, who I use as a sort of counter-balance when scaling down the side of a bank, him at the top, us clipped together by his lead.
Looking back at our Facebook posts it’s hard to believe how much we’ve cleared and what would have happened to it if we, and other like-minded people, hadn’t picked it up.
Other memorable moments were in the spring being involved in delivering plastic awareness sessions on Zoom to seven schools in the Stonehouse area of Plymouth with the Marine Conservation Society and reading my story Tuamor the Turtle to them. In August it was great to be at Sidmouth Festival with my book Rosa’s Footprint, part of a wider environmental project Think Footprint. And in September to launch the Exeter Cosy Route Challenge a community wellbeing, awareness and fundraising project for Exeter Dementia Action Alliance.
One of the best things about 2021 though has been being able to get back to marathon events again, after Covid impacted on 2020 plans leaving me stuck on 76. I managed to tick off 10, taking me to 86 with one on December 12th at the Jolly Running Christmas Marathon at Escot.
So despite it being a “rubbish” year, it’s been a pretty good one really, all things considered in this Covid-odd world, and certainly better than some sad and difficult recent years.
My lovely Mum and Dad are never far from my thoughts. As I was just searching for some running photos, one appeared as a thumbnail that I didn’t remember, clicking on it, there was Mum on the city tour bus at Edinburgh when I did my 50th marathon there in 2015. Happy days bringing tears to my eyes but comforted by the sense that my wonderful, inspiring, giving parents are still with me.
Memories have been much on my mind this August. Good, bad, happy, sad, it’s certainly been a mixed bag, and with September being World Alzheimer’s Month, an opportune time to pause and think about the importance of memory to us all.
The month started with me helping to deliver children’s activities at Sidmouth Festival 10 years ago to the day that I gave up my journalism career, and 35 years since I started work in the town as a local newspaper reporter.
It was fantastic to be part of this iconic event, reflecting on the steps that led me there, literally in this case, as it was through my children’s story Rosa’s Footprint that I was there all week, on the final day the festival kindly giving a platform for prizes to be presented in a local school children’s writing competition I’d organised in conjunction with Sidmouth Science Festival.
What a thrill, a great memory kick off to the month.
Much of August has been taken up working with Exeter Dementia Action Alliance to finalise plans for the Exeter Cosy Routes Challenge, this will offer people of all abilities, including those living with dementia and their carers, the opportunity to take part in this outdoor well-being and awareness project.
We’ve made some great memories with that already, and I’m sure there are many more to come.
Having known the impact of dementia as a grand-daughter, a daughter and now a wife and carer, improving lives for people living with this cruel disease, and their loved ones, is something I’m passionate about.
That’s why I was so distressed on Friday when a long looked forward to family outing to Sidmouth Airshow to see the Red Arrows, was such a challenging and upsetting experience, shockingly poor customer care overall and no apparent awareness of someone with dementia.
We’d booked weeks ago for late afternoon tea at the Victoria Hotel, a four star stunning property with elevated spectacular views across the seafront. We’ve been there before, though not on air show day, and after tea indoors have been able to sit out on the terrace. This was us on my birthday three years ago.
My stepson Mark, who lives away, was coming with his mum, a family get together, something we’ve done in recent years on Red Arrows day, at the seafront Hotel Riviera, where we’ve been able to have tea and stay on site, using hotel facilities during the display.
John, now 77, has become more frail in recent years and uses a walking frame, he also has COPD, and this time we chose the Vic for tea and to watch the display from as it has on site parking, and plenty of outside space away from the crowded Esplanade.
John’s dementia is such that although he’s known and visited the hotel many times (he was a chartered surveyor in the town for nearly 40 years), he remarked as we arrived that he’d never been before. One of those cameo moments of dementia that hit me every time he doesn’t recall something that previously he’d have relished the memory of and talking about.
The traffic this year was the busiest I’ve seen it, and parked cars lined streets far out of town as we drove in, arriving later than planned because of hold-ups. So it was a great relief to be waved into a parking space close to the hotel door and assisted by the helpful and friendly hotel porter. Relief turned to dismay when he relayed the news that we wouldn’t be able to stay on site, not even in the garden, beyond 5.30pm when serving teas closed.
I asked could we leave the car, walk off site and watch, but that was not an option either. We would not have booked had we known this. I don’t understand why did the hotel take our order, knowing they’d be demanding that we leave when roads were closed, traffic everywhere, and the air show just underway.
We agreed to have tea anyway as Mark had just got there after a long difficult drive, and other options were limited. John, bless him, suggested we watch the display from our garden. We’re close to Exeter Airport and see the Arrows pass by when they’re in the county, but not even with the best binoculars could you view from our land-locked garden a sea display five miles away. Another of those dementia cameo confusion moments.
Tea was ordered and arrived, and we relaxed into family catch up chat, the question of what to do afterwards unresolved.
John headed for the loo, firmly telling me, yes he could manage on his own. An absence longer than required passed, and I eventually found him on the outside terrace, supported by his walking frame, happily watching a Chinook diving and twisting.
The hotel manager was with the porter clearly discussing what to do about this infringement. Other guests spoke kindly, offering John a seat, and sharing their enjoyment at the display.
I tried to coax John gently away, telling him he couldn’t be there.
“But why?” he asked. “I’m just watching the helicopter. No one will mind that.”
It broke my heart to make him leave, almost bungling him into the car.
“He has dementia,” I said to the manager, “he doesn’t understand.”
And how to give a reason that I didn’t understand either.
In the context of what’s going on the world it may not sound much, but it was so distressing having to do this, and in front of other guests.
We did catch the end of display thanks to friends who’s garden has a sea view, their kindness being a happy memory from the afternoon.
One of the positives of dementia is that people living with it don’t dwell on things, they’re focused on being in the moment, but the upset stayed with me and clouded my mind the following day, a significant one, as it would have been my dad’s 80th birthday, had dementia not taken him too early in 2015, aged 73.
We’d arranged a family walk on Dartmoor close to where we scattered his ashes on his birthday, and from where I’d walked with him seven years before, also on his birthday and just before he was admitted to a nursing home requiring 24/7 care.
All these memories, fresh and historic, circling in my head, as I parked at the Postbridge Visitor Centre and went to get a parking ticket. I still can’t believe it, but I left the handbrake off and the car, with my dog Freddie in it, rolled right out of the space into another vehicle. Thank goodness no one was hurt. Thankfully not much damage to either car too, but a further upset to my already upset mind. A kind lady at the centre, called Jo, made me a cup of tea, and having had experience of dementia herself understood my tale of woe.
The walk to the spectacular waterfall on the East Dart River, where we’ve been many times, was one of sharing happy memories and feeling the support of family.
It’s hard being a carer of someone with dementia because it’s difficult to discuss with them all the things you feel, and to interpret the world around them in a way they can understand.
John was a huge support to me when Dad was poorly, and I ran multiple marathons raising money for dementia research charity BRACE. Now John can’t remember either, not even travelling around the world, me ticking off marathons from New York to across Europe, and the UK.
Last weekend I completed my 80th. It’s not easy, as it’s not easy sitting here on a Bank Holiday Monday afternoon writing all this about dementia and wondering what’s the point, who cares?
But memories are important, and in a world where more people are being diagnosed with dementia and at an earlier age, I feel businesses need to recognise the particular challenges that people with dementia and their carers face and take more care to make their memories good ones.
Footnote: A former client of John’s from years ago rang this morning asking if he was still available to do a survey. I explained not and it turned out she had experience of dementia too, we chatted for a while, sharing stories. As we said goodbye, she said how kind and professional John had been in his job and that he was warmly remembered. How nice to know.
This World Alzheimer’s Month let’s make more memories warm ones.
Apologies if all this is a bit muddled, I probably should just stick to running, it’s one foot in front of the other.
When I type carer on my desktop computer, the spell-check changes it to career.
Ironic that caring occupies much of my time when it’s not a choice, let alone salaried employment.
For 6.5 million people in the UK unpaid caring is part of their daily life, a role that’s recognised in this Carers Week (June 7 to 13), with the theme ‘Make Caring Visible and Valued’.
Speaking from experience, it can be a struggle to feel visible and valued. Several years ago I looked after an elderly friend who had dementia in the last 18 months of his life. I took him a home cooked meal on Christmas Day, and sat with him, only for him to say when I visited again on Boxing Day that he’d spent the day alone and eaten nothing.
It was something I was able to talk about with my husband John and take lightly knowing that it was as a result of the cruel disease that is dementia and that our friend would never have wanted to make me feel I wasn’t valued.
With John now living with dementia himself, and me being his main carer, I share stories of the stresses and strains it puts on us both with family, friends, through my writing, health professionals, and helpful supportive organisations like Devon Carers and specialist dementia services. In this way I try to make my caring role visible to others. The value comes in their response – concerned, kind, willing to understand and listen, in laughing with them, crying, letting off steam, in their recognition that this behind-closed-doors-role of looking after someone else is an important part of a wider compassionate based society.
The thing they remind me most often is to look after myself otherwise I would not be able to look after John.
I’m getting better at this, making time for doing things I enjoy and seeking more outside help, most recently finding a placement with the wonderful Filo Project, who offer home based, small group daycare for people living with dementia.
These six hours are a precious window of light in my week, a time when I can let go briefly of the caring responsibility knowing John is being safely looked after by someone else.
John’s feeling about these days out is, it’s fair to say, less initially enthused than mine, but Gerry who hosts the care day, takes his usually neutral response in good humour, picking him up and dropping him home with a smile and warmth. The benefit comes out in following hours and days, in conversation about what he got up to.
There was a lovely moment recently, when a couple of days before my birthday that day’s activity was flower arranging and John came home beaming with a gift of flowers he’d arranged himself. We’ve enjoyed looking at them these past two weeks, visible and bringing a sense of value for both of us.
It’s 10 years since I gave up my career as a journalist, but the writing and other projects I do in a voluntary capacity and in caring for John bring their own sense of self-worth and satisfaction.
Sharing this post and the picture of these flowers in the hope that all carers, for at least some of the time, feel visible and valued.
Marathon footnote – as this blog is nominally about running, happy to report I’ve ticked off number 78, completing 30 miles at the Powderham Castle 24 hour Conquer event on Saturday. Yes, running an ultra-marathon for seven plus hours is really how I like to relax and take care of myself.
Like many I was shocked to hear of the violent death of Sarah Everard. Such events can trigger painful memories for those who’ve experienced similar situations.
I’ve been reminded of things from my past by reports of Sarah’s death and news this week about tighter laws introduced to prevent adults in a position of trust preying on vulnerable youngsters. Some I’ve written about before, some I haven’t, but they’ve affected my life profoundly.
The first moment I was truly scared was when I was nine-years-old and a man exposed himself to me. He was driving a green car along a leafy suburban road in broad daylight, as I was seeing my friend home, a short walk to her house, accompanied for safety by our family German Shepherd dog.
I left my friend and Anna, the dog, at the back of the wide pavement and made my way to the car as the man wound down the window and asked for directions to the beach.
I’ve written about this before, so I’m not going to dwell, needless to say he didn’t want directions, he wanted to exert some sort of power and control over me, to shock – which he did in spades.
To this day, I’m affected every time someone innocently asks me for directions. For many years I’d become nauseous and have flashbacks whenever a car pulled up, feeling nine-years-old again and terrified.
My memory of this incident was compounded by another control and power moment from around the same time. A teenage boy held me at a knifepoint in a narrow footpath, demanding for me to kiss him, which I desperately held off doing, eventually managing to escape.
These incidents were diagnosed eight years ago as being childhood trauma leading to PTSD and the source of my OCD, also diagnosed at the same time. Thankfully, through therapy I handle the triggers a lot better now and I’ve always tried to live without the fear they bring stopping me from what I want to do.
The thing I’ve never written of publicly before, but it feels relevant to include here, is that in my mid-teens through an activity I was involved in, I came into close contact with a man 15 years older. As he lived nearby, I’d travel in his car to group activities. His interest and praise made me feel grown-up, flattered, special. He exerted an influence and power that dominated my growing adolescence. It was not until years later I understood how naive and deceived I’d been, as had others.
So I welcomed the news this week of closing the legal loophole around “positions of trust” between adults and the young people they have responsibility for through social or sporting activity. I hope it will make a difference to someone in the position I was in all those years ago.
Going on to time in a workplace, as a 19-year-old I was overtly groped by a much older male colleague. When I complained to the boss, he basically replied he’d like to do the same and what did I expect as a lone woman surrounded by men. I didn’t stay there much longer. As for office banter and innuendo, yes I’ve heard it many times and batted back, fortunately that type of sexual language seemed to peter out as we left the last century behind.
But I was reminded of it yesterday and the uncomfortable way it makes me feel.
A workman was visiting the house. As he was about to step indoors and I reached to put my face mask on, he said: “Don’t worry, your face is too pretty for a mask.”
“What!” my head screamed.
This is 2021. I don’t think that kind of remark from a man to a woman he doesn’t know is appropriate. Or am I being over-sensitive?
It was enough of a question to make me write this.
As a footnote, I know many, many wonderful kind men, who’ve always treated me decently along with all women around them. None of them has ever told me I’m pretty and I value them for it.
When you’ve got no hot water or heating and call a plumber, it’s a question you expect to be asked.
But not from your husband, who’s lived in the house for more than 30 years and built the cupboard that houses the boiler.
This is what John asked a few days ago when I said the plumber might call when I was out.
It upset me so much I sat down to write about the horrible disease that dementia is and how it’s not always the big things that get you, but the little things… the loss of memory of where the boiler is.
But I didn’t get beyond those first few paragraphs because writing about something when you’re going through it can be too difficult.
Lockdown at the moment feels really tough, I know many people are struggling more this time, finding it a challenge.
Our running club chairman Terry has turned the limitations of lockdown on its head, by setting a weekly series of routes to be run, road and off road, getting dozens of club members out and about, from running between lamp-posts on Sidmouth seafront to conquering surrounding trig points.
I did one of the challenges today, an 11-mile multi-terrain hilly route that took in the Otter valley, the Jurassic coast, and the scenic East Devon AONB countryside.
It brought back many happy memories as I ran, many Friday group and club night social runs, and events I’ve taken part in, the Otterton Reindeer Run, the Sidmouth Festival 10km, the Exe to Axe, the Four Trigs, and the Women Can Marathon, which I also helped organise.
Otterton Reindeer Run, me as a Xmas tree, club chairman Terry as an angel!
It was so great to be out in the fresh air, savouring such wonderful scenery, enjoying being alive, and remembering.
It was a reassurance to know John was safe and well here at home, with one of the carers being here for part of the time I was out, watching his favourite morning TV, knowing I’d be back to do his lunch.
He wasn’t sitting there worrying that the other day he didn’t remember where the boiler was.
So neither should I.
Always best to remember the good times, and especially in lockdown.
Browsing through social media this week I read a lovely poem from the Private Eye cartoonist Tony Husband, which reminded me of the importance of remembering family members we didn’t know because they were taken too early in their lives.
Tony never got to meet his great uncle Joe, who died age 23 on the Somme in 1916. I never got to meet my grandfather and wrote a blog about it. I decided to re-post on this Remembrance weekend inspired by Tony’s poem, which he kindly let me share…
Like Tony not ever getting to meet his great uncle, I never knew my Grandad, Bert Isaac, my mother’s father. He died long before I was born – the mustard gas he was exposed to during the First World War caused permanent scarring to his lungs, leading him to suffer tuberculosis.
Twenty-five years after breathing in its poison, as an 18-year-old, on the front line trenches of France, he passed away at home. He was 42, leaving a widow, a young son and a baby – my mother – then just a few weeks old.
My mother talked of him often, referring to him as Daddy and terribly sad that he was absent from her life. I’m ashamed to say that as a child he meant little to me. He was a black and white one-dimensional figure from the past, a sepia-tinted image from family scrapbooks. He wasn’t real, not like my other Grandad – who made me laugh with his funny antics, took me on bracing walks, baked delicious buns and was always a fountain of knowledge.
My father’s father Joseph Bishop, died when I was in my early 30s. And it was only really in grieving for him, that I began to think more about this other significant member of my family – as much a part of my being in the world – but with no memories to reflect on.
I don’t practice religion as such, but in my quiet irregular faith I like to “remember” loved ones. So of course when Grandad died, I included him in my litany. I realised then I had never once “remembered” my other grandfather, prayed for him, asked the God I believe in, to keep him safe.
How could I have made such a massive oversight?!! Overlooked his service to his country at such a young age, his courage, the fear he must have felt lying wounded on a battlefield, his following struggle to find work in failing health and raise a family. Overlooked his ultimate sacrifice – losing his own life having fought, so that others may live in peace. Never seeing his son and daughter grow up, let alone his grandchildren. Overlooked all that, despite his direct and personal connection to me.
The First World War has faded into the history books. The men who fought there – like my grandfather – are photographs in family scrapbooks, perhaps captured on film or audio – but no longer here to remind us directly of who they were, their experience.
It’s easy to overlook or forget things – especially when you have no direct experience of something or someone. But we can learn so much from what others have done before, including from those family members we never got to meet.
NB: Around 8,000 British soldiers were killed directly as a result of gas poisoning in the First World War – but a further 180,000 suffered non-fatal injuries from it, 70% of them being declared fit for duty in six weeks. Most were left with permanent scar tissue damage to their lungs, leaving them exposed to diseases like tuberculosis. With effective treatment still under development, many of the 1918 casualties died around the time of the Second World War. (Source: Wikipedia)
I’ve written thousands of words in recent months, about various causes and projects.
How come sitting here writing my own blog is such a source of writer’s block?
Since my last ‘Rock and the Kite’ post back in June about caring for John, things have been a crazy whirl, launching the Exeter COSY Routes www.exetercosyroutes.wordpress.com, completing the publication of my third children’s story ‘Rosa’s Footprint’ part of a wider environmental awareness project called Think Footprint http://www.thinkfootprint.org, and managing regular everyday life in a challenging Covid world.
I’ve hardly done any running, well aside from completing the full COSY Marathon route distance on World Alzheimer’s Day, September 21st, which rather negates the point of blog and its Obsessive Compulsive Running title.
Without Coronavirus I would have hoped to have completed at least a further 10 official marathons by now, but as it is I remain on 76, which strangely is the age John was back in July.
Today’s date, the 30th also has a resonance… it’s 30 years since I’ve known John, we met in rehearsals for the village pantomime in the winter of 1990/91, where I trod the boards as Aladdin and John was my on stage brother Wishee-Washee.
It was a difficult time in my life and John stepped forward to help me through it, showing compassion and care and giving me respite.
And it’s in the difficult realisation of the time nearing when I need to seek respite care for John that I find myself at a loss to know what more to write.
Obsessive Compulsive Running....... 
