Rant.

This is going to be the rant of rants so scroll down until it’s over if you are not in the mood for a rant.

I AM SO BORED WITH DEMENTIA.

I want my life back, the bits of it that are possible. I am tired of talking about it, speaking on it. I want to go to the theatre – more than a year since I did, to a concert- three years at least, to the cinema about a year. I want to see the sea, three years since I did. I would like to be able to get to every meeting of the U3A groups I belong to. not about one in five. I wish Quakers would see me as someone who has more to offer than the experience of this disease.

I don’t want to have to spend most of the day following every Dementia event in bed because it has wiped me out. I long to go for a week to St Buenos to follow in the footsteps of Gerard Manley Hopkins and just gawp at God – a phrase I learned from the late Gerard Hughes S.J.

Rant over. I sound like a character in a Chekov play wanting to go to Moscow..   And just to give the lie to my rant my daughter is taking me to see The Cherry Orchard at The Royal Exchange in May,

And of course like all rants it is only half the picture. It was great being in London doing the media training and contributing to plans to include people living with Dementia on recruiting panels. It was great being with my friends, the side splitting laughter, the wicked gossip, the long talks with my dear friend Nigel Hullah on the importance of faith and the Blair Government; seeing Londoners filling the parks and the pavements as they  enjoyed every minute of the long waited sun.

The traffic was horrendous Adele Doherty, the head of Dementia Voice, and I were travelling on the same train, which we missed and the train we caught was super crowded. Adele, as she does,found the train manager and I was allowed a seat in First Class. And what a bad experience that was. The sour faced female train manager came up to my seat and took away the linen cover from the head rest and that seemed to make me a non person. I wasn’t offered anything that was offered to the three business sitting at my table, who blanked me throughout the journey, as did every attendant who passed my seat. When the train manager checked the tickets she said loudly ‘ Oh yes you’re the one travelling on a standard class ticket. I felt I should have had a bell and cried ‘unclean’.

Come on Virgin trains a cup of black coffee wouldn’t have hurt would it?

To be fair Virgin Train staff are usually wonderful but that particular lady seemed to have been trained by the Nazis.

I spend too much time on Facebook and I spend too much time on Facebook watching clips of Peter Kaye and helpless with laughter His sketch on the reaction of old ladies to very hot weather might be me. I am sweating cobs. I don’t think I ever complain about the cold but am not good in heat.

Must go, poems to write, ice cream to make.