Hmm ... better day today

So far, things are going OK re the infection on my leg. The angry redness and the swelling has started to go down - phew! Still a little lumpy, and a bruise is coming through; and I still can't get my leg on yet. All this being stuck in the wheelchair and having to use the crutches to get up and down stairs makes me appreciate how far I've come, eh? Whoo! Ain't going back to that, thank goodness, all being well.


Adding to my much better mood today, the new Nazareth album that I've been waiting for came out today, and was duly delivered by my best friend the postie ...

along with a couple of items from their back catlogue I'd ordered (Cinema, and Expect No Mercy)

.. erm, plus Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous (both the CD and DVD versions), which was by far my favourite live rock album. Now I already have this on vinyl, and I could have converted it, but it was really cheap and I was ordering the other stuff anyway, and ... well, retail therapy, ok? And what's wrong with that?!

Trials and tribulations (long one - sorry)

I’m back in the wheelchair this week after getting an infection in my stump. It started on Thursday morning with a stabbing pain in the top of my shin when I put my leg on. I’d been trying a different arrangement for my socks, in an attempt to improve the fit, but as soon as I put weight on my leg, I got the pain.

I took my leg off and re-arranged my socks back to how they’d been over the previous few weeks, and thought no more of it. I knew it was going to be a busy day, and I needed to leave the leg on as our cleaner, Linda, was coming; then I was expecting delivery of our new dishwasher (they could only say that they were coming between 12 and 4pm) and I needed to be up and about for that; and finally I was waiting for our local appliance repair guy to come and fit it.

While the repair guy was still struggling to get the cabinet door to fit on the dishwasher front (Hoover don’t give very good instructions – glad I wasn’t trying to do it!), Denise arrived home from her trip to Germany. Once we were alone, we went for a walk, and later on, went out for a pizza and to go to the pictures.

All this time my leg felt slightly uncomfortable, but when we got home, and I took the prosthetic off, it was very very tight and my leg was very sore. There was a bright red swelling on my shin, just under my kneecap (I tried to take a photo, but the redness didn’t really show up – which is why there’s no photo posted here), which was very tender to the touch.

I assumed that it would go down in a day or so, but by Sunday evening, it was still very hot and tender, and I was worried about getting an infection on the bone again, so I phoned the Astley Ainslie hospital for advice yesterday (Sunday), but they said I needed a referral from my GP to see the specialist at the hospital.

So I’ve just got back from the GP, who prescribed me a course of anti-biotics – my old friend co-amoxyclav again, which I was popping nearly all the time I was in hospital. My GP didn’t think I needed to see the specialists at the Astley Ainslie hospital, as he thought it was just an infection in the skin, which suited me: saved a trip into Edinburgh – but I’m going to be keeping a weather eye on it, and if there’s no sign of improvement in the next couple of days or, I will be back to the doctor again. It’s bad enough having lost my foot and ankle to infection, I don’t want to be losing any more of my leg.

That’s enough of that. The film we went to see was Vantage Point starring Dennis Quaid. If you’ve seen the trailers you’ll know that the premise is that the US President is assassinated while attending a rally prior to an anti-terrorism summit in Spain, and the film reveals more about what happened by seeing the event from a number of different viewpoints. This is all then pulled together, and we have the obligatory car chase – with Opel Astras, no less. I won’t reveal anything in case you want to go and see it, but honestly, I’d wait and see it on telly if I was you. Seeing it on the big screen doesn’t really add anything to the experience. It was nice to have a night out, but this wasn’t the best film I’ve seen by a long shot. I’ll bet that it’s based on a short story or something, and I’d guess that the written version is a lot better. There were a number of Hollywood stars in the cast (Forrest Whittaker, Sigourney Weaver, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, and your favourite South American Dictator’s namesake and mine, Eduardo Noriega), but those parts could have been played by anyone, really.

I was able to enjoy watching all the motor-racing that was on telly this weekend, while Denise went to Edinburgh to run in the World 5k. She stayed on to watch all the cross-country stars in the World Cross Country events in Holyrood park, while I watched the MotoGP race. James Toseland, the best (only?) brit on the grid, was unlucky to come only 6th, after having been duffed up by Loris Capirossi on the last corner. You don’t get any more experienced on a GP bike than Capirossi, so at least Toseland can take comfort from being beaten by a wilier opponent. JT started 8th on the grid, which wasn’t bad considering he was suffering from bronchitis, but lost out at the start, dropping to 10th. He’d fought his way (literally – there are other bikes in the workshops with Toseland’s bike’s yellow and blue paint down the sides of their fairings) up to 5th, and was fighting them off nearly all of the rest of the race, right until the last corner; which is pretty good going considering he was ill. Dani Pedrosa didn’t do bad to win, either, considering he was riding with an injured hand. Didn’t stop him wrassling that Honda all around the circuit for 30 laps, or whatever it was. It’s also very encouraging to see me old favourite Valentino Rossi coming in second from the second row of the grid.

Due South to Moffat

I'm still looking for work, but there's not a lot around just now. Suits me. I'm nearly ready, but I could do with just a little more time to work on my stamina. My mood is a lot better (ask Denise about that!), and I'm back to having a positive outlook; as I had when I was in hospital. The support around me then made it a lot easier to be positive, and the progress was much greater - going from not walking at all to walking - even if only slowly and with the aid of sticks - is a huge jump. I still have great support around me from friends and family, but it is not the crucible that the hospital was. Nowadays, the improvements are smaller, and it's harder to recognise them for what they are. Sometimes I needed that pointed out to me, by Denise, and my friends.

We had a really nice drive down to Moffat, in the Borders, today. This is my favourite drive, because the scenery is stupendous. There are no photos here, because there are not many places to stop to take them. Some time ago I posted a photo of the Devil's beeftub, which is on this route. Today, there was a bit of snow about, and the hills were dusted with it. Superb, and I never even had to fight my way through Easter traffic over the Forth Road Bridge! The Highlands are beautiful, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's a lot easier to head south.

Back to work?

Suddenly, I'm getting on better with my leg. I guess my own leg and the prosthetic extension have decided that they're stuck with each other, so they might as well get along. I was getting quite a lot of pain yesterday, probably following the exercise I did at the gym on Sunday. But it's calmed down now, and it's such a relief that, generally, it's getting easier. We walked up to our favourite local restaurant at the other end of the village, and I was fine. I suddenly realised I was walking at nearly my pre-accident pace - none of the slow, frustrating plodding. So, speed is up, but range/stamina isn't. Apparently you're supposed to concentrate on one or the other, and, being the impatient person I am, I went for speed ;-)

I am seriously thinking about going back to work in about a month, if there's anything going. I've contacted Steven, the guy I was working for at RBS when I had my accident, so see if I can go back, but I've also been contacted by another consultancy I worked for a few years ago, and they are also looking to see if they can find anything for me.

This is all good stuff, but it's also slightly terrifying. I've not worked for a year, and have got out of the habit - I have a lot of time to myself, and have not, so far, minded that. I see nothing wrong in wanting to watch a couple of films in the afternoon, then have a bit of a nap, and then play computer games. I'm happy doing that. When I'm not, I'll know I'm really ready to go back to work. At the moment, I'm just getting a little unsettled, and feeling guilty that I'm not back after a whole year. But when you think I actually had my amputation at the end of July, that will only be 9 months if I go back in April, and some people don't get back to work for a couple of years.

Anyhow, as I've joined the gym now (yes, really) I'm hoping to build up my stamina, and get myself back interested in the world outside the house, so it sort of feels right that I'm putting out feelers for getting back to work. I have to admit to being unsure whether I'm doing the right thing. I sort of set a year from my accident almost at random, and I'm feeling pressure on myself to stand by that. I don't know how much my condition is going to improve if I go on as I am. Should I wait, do more excercise, and be sure I'm up to it, or should I go back to work and hope that any potential employer will be sympathetic when I run out of steam, or am suffering from pain and needing to take my leg off for a couple of hours? It's hard. I could go on as I am for months and months, getting leg pain, and falling asleep in the afternoon. If I just go on waiting for that to improve, I may never get back to work. Got to do something, then. Yes? No? Oh, good grief, I just don't know.

Graeme's Living Room Concert

What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon! My pal Graeme invited us over to his place to be part of a small audience in one of his occasional Living Room Suite concerts. This involved about 30 people crammed into his living room to watch two rising-star singer/songwriters give their all with just a piano and a guitar to perform with, while Graeme recorded the whole thing for his radio show.

First we had the highly acclaimed Kim Edgar (www.kimedgar.com), who has recently returned from the USA, and whose new album, Butterflies and Broken Glass, is an absolute delight. It's rather nice to hear the songs as she would have played them to herself as she was writing them, without the full orchestration that appears on the album version, and then to go to the CD and hear the full article. Although many of the songs could be described as being less then cheerful, she is a charming, funny lady, and well worth seeing live - although I doubt you'd find a venue as intimate as Graeme and Gillian's front room: we were less than two metres away from Kim as she performed!

After some fabulous food, provided at the interval by Gillian, we were back for the second half with Alex Cornish, another class act whose music has been used in several films, and who has produced his own album, Until the Traffic Stops, after being messed around by the record companies to the point where he gave up on them, and did it himself. Alex is an entertaining guy, as well as a talented singer and songwriter. Again, it's interesting to hear the music stripped of all the studio layering and orchestration. You can find out more about him at www.myspace.com/alexcornish, or www.alexcornish.com.

Needless to say, we bought the albums :-)

Graeme will edit these recordings and they'll be played on his show on Leith FM (98.8 MHz in Edinburgh, or via the Internet at http://www.leithfm.co.uk/) on either the first or third Thursday in April, between 10am and noon.

Third Leg (it's not cricket), and Rock 'n' Roll

Leg
In my New York posting, I opened with “Since I got my last new leg, I've not been inclined to do anything much except watch telly”, which may not have made a lot of sense. The fact is, I was not getting on very well with my latest leg, but now I think I have finally found a comfortable combination for the socks that I wear between it and my stump. It’s taken a while! I have thick and thin socks, and some that I have cut the ‘toes’ out of to form a ring, and these I place where there is an area that has shrunk more than the rest, to keep the whole thing nice and tight and comfy.

This is my third prosthetic leg, or Leg No. 3, as I like to refer to it, at the risk of sounding a bit like Kryten, the domestic robot from Red Dwarf, with his cupboard full of spare heads and hands, etc. I was wearing four or five thick socks with Leg No. 2, which fairly effectively stopped me bending my knee by more than a little, so I was really looking forward to getting my new leg back at the beginning of February. For some reason, I didn’t get on so well with the new one, it being fiddly to get the sock padding right. As soon as I took possession of it, about eight or ten days after having been measured up for it, I realised that my stump had changed shape in the intervening time: it was more than frustrating. I couldn't walk very far without getting sore and very tired (hence just vegging in front of the telly), and it was this that has got me down in the dumps. I knew I had the New York trip ahead of me, which I knew would involve a lot of walking, the prospect of which was, quite frankly, appalling. As it turned out, it was no more than a little tiring and uncomfortable, but it was worth the discomfort.

Guitar
Yesterday I had a good old ‘sesh’ on the guitar. I bought a little four channel mixer box the other day, which was a lot better than my previous one, in that it is powered so that one channel doesn’t overwhelm the others. I set this up with my guitar in one channel, and my keyboard and iPod in two of the others, all output to my Peavey amp. I started off with just using the rhythms from the keyboard, then added in some of the melodies to play along with, and moved on to hitting Shuffle on the iPod and attempting to play along with whatever turned up. It was noisy. Very noisy. Not all of it was good, but I ended up playing for about four hours, only interrupted by near starvation, and frantic knocking on the window - which was surprising, as I was up in the loft room - and a voice calling my name. ‘Mr Tracey! Mr Tracey! It’s the roofer!’, he called. No shit, I thought, a roofer, knocking at my second storey window. And here’s me thinking it was the postman. I shut everything down to go and meet the guy, chuckling to myself.

I was using the Gibson SG that Denise bought me for my 50th birthday, and, I have to say, it is a fantastic instrument to play, and it’s barely run in yet! The action is so light that even after all that playing, my fingers weren’t sore (I’ve lost the hard pads I had when I used to play all the time as a yoof), but just tingled slightly. I think the skin’s hardening again, as I have had more time to play over the last ten months.

New Nazareth Album
I’ve just ordered the new Nazareth album The Newz that’s due out at the end of this month. It’s the band’s 40th anniversary in the business, and their epic world tour is underway as I write. This is one of the hard rock bands that I keep coming back to, due to the band’s song-writing talents, and to Dan McCafferty’s unique (despite attempts – I say attempts at imitation) vocal style, which sets the band apart from the others. I’m a guitarist, so that’s the thing I normally listen for in a band, but it was always the voice which, to me, defined Nazareth – not that there was anything wrong with Manny Charlton’s guitar work.

Manny Charlton moved on a long time ago – although he has reportedly formed a band billing itself as ‘Nazareth featuring Manny Charlton’, probably also thinking about the 40th anniversary. I think I’d be disappointed if I went to a show or bought an album with that billing that didn’t have McCafferty’s voice in the line-up.

I’ve heard a few of the tracks from the new album on Leith FM. DJ Graeme Scott has connections with the band, and produced an excellent interview, including a sprinkling of tracks from the album (there’s your plug, G), which I think is still available from the forum on the band’s official website (http://www.nazarethdirect.co.uk/). From that, I can tell you that this is not a last hurrah for sentiment’s sake from a band that started out in 1968, but a real, proper Nazareth album that’ll sit alongside the best. There’s even an epic ballad for when you’re feeling romantic, in Enough Love. I should also say that Nazareth are far from being Dan McCafferty on his tod! The father-and-son rhythm section of Pete (bass) and Lee (drums) Agnew drives the sound, keeping your head bobbing and yer toes tappin’; and Jimmy Murrison’s excellent guitar work has my fingers twitching a la air guitar, and my head humming. I’m really looking forward to that Amazon parcel dropping through the door. I think I'm cheering up again. Hooray!

(Album cover image courtesy of the Nazareth official website. See links above and right)

New design and features

I've applied a different design to my blogsite. I was getting bored with brown. I've also added the ability to add comments and forward the post you're reading via email. Click on the n comments link (where n is the number of comments posted so far) to add a comment, or click on the envelope icon to forward the link via email to a friend. The n comments link is also used to just view previous comments. Have fun, but remember I get to check the comments before they are published, so don't be rude!

Last blog - phew! A biggie!

The last blog was a big one, and I have to say, the software is not exactly brilliant. Getting the text to stay with the photos was very hard, and I had to redo stuff several times. It kept adding huge spaces between the photos and paragraphs. Even using the Preview function doesn't guarantee you'll get it right: sometimes when you publish the post, it still doesn't look like the preview. It's so frustrating when things don't work as they should. Anyway, it's done now, so I hope you appreciate the work that's gone into it!

New York City!

Since I got my last new leg, I've not been inclined to do anything much except watch telly. I certainly haven't been out on any walks (except when I went to New York: see below), as I haven't been getting on with it so well. Even though I was wearing a lot of socks with the last one, which caused me some problems, it was quite comfortable, and I could walk some distance without too much trouble. The new one feels a bit loose at the top, and when I try to add enough socks to give me confidence that it's not going to fly off when I'm walking, it's too tight at the bottom end. Can't bloody win! Anyhoo, if I fiddle around I can sort of get it to work for me, but it's been really getting me down, so I've not been good company. Added to which, I have been changing my tablets over from Dihydrocodeine, which is an opiate which makes me very drowsy, to Diclofenac, which is an anti-inflammatory which works on neural pain. I seem to be getting more pain now, but I'll see how I get on - but this also is bringing me down a bit.

Some time ago I'd agreed to join Denise on one of her work trips to the States. She would be working in Newark, Delaware (not to be confused with Newark, New Jersey, a couple of hours up the road) for a couple of days towards the end of the week. The idea being that we would then head up to New York for a couple of days to take in the sights and maybe a show. I was getting stressed about this because of the problems with my leg, knowing that the weekend would involve a lot of walking.

The flight over was a daytime one, and as we passed over Canada and Newfoundland, there was spectacular scenery - all snow and Ice. I managed to get a few photos through the plane's window, and here are just a couple of them.

Our hotel was right on Times Square. Here is the view out of the window.

As you can see, we weren't too high up (14th floor) so we got a good view. Fortunately, the curtains were very thick, so we did manage to get some sleep that night. We wandered out for something to eat, and found a Planet Hollywood just around the corner. It had loads of famous movie stuff in it, mostly from Stallone's films. To prove it, here's the piccy



After food we headed off up 5th Avenue to have a look at the posh shops. It was quite a way, and I at the start I was still worried about how much I'd manage, but I didn't want to let Denise down. It wasn't too bad, and at least Denise managed to find a very nice jumper to add to her extensive collection - it really does suit her, and wasn't as exhorbitant as I expected for 5th Avenue, and now she can talk about her '5th Avenue purchase'! Tiffany's was a highlight, literally. I have never seen so many top quality diamonds in one place: the counters looked like they were on fire. And it's somewhere Denise wanted to go: she's a big fan of Breakfast at Tiffany's. There was a small queue of people waiting to take this photo :-)

I was totally knackered by the end of it, and we were a mile from the hotel, so we jumped into a pedal rickshaw to get back. It was dearer and more terrifying than a taxi, but an experience not to be missed. The guy was working harder than a cab driver, so I guess he deserved the higher tarriff! Oh, and my mate Graeme had asked me to get a toy/model New York Yellow Cab for him, which I thought was a brilliant souvenir idea, so I bought two; one for me, and one for the G Man. If you're reading this, Graeme, I'll bring it along when we visit for the gig. :-)

We had a bit of a sleep (we'd arrived around 8.30 am local time - having taken off at about 8 am our local time) and then, still full from lunch, we headed up to the rotating cocktail bar on the 48th floor of the hotel. The night-time views were stunning, and we drank one too many cocktails, just to stay and enjoy the view. We paid for it the next day, but it was worth it.








I like the reflections of the bar's lights from the glass, particularly the last one of the view towards the river (you can really see the grid pattern of the city): I think they add to the photos.

Like I say, we paid the price for the extra cocktail, and for staying up till gone midnight, and it was gone lunchtime before we could face going out. Once up, we went down and enquired about tickets at the box office in the hotel, but they were full price, and they added about 20% handling charge. More exhorbitant than Ticket Master! So we went down before 3 o'clock and queued at Tkts to see if we could get what we wanted there. We'd chosen Curtains, as it had been running for almost a year, and had got very good reviews and won quite a few awards. The lead (Inspector Cioffi) was played by David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane, in Frasier), and there were quite a few major Broadway stars in the cast to bolster the TV star, so it looked promising. We managed to get the tickets in less than an hour's queuing, and at 50% off. Deal done!

Determined not to waste the whole day, we jumped into a cab and headed down to Central Park (I was NOT going to walk all that way again!) to go for a carriage ride. The park looked great in the snow, and we saw a lot of familiar spots from films, such as bridge over the bridle path which countless action heroes have jumped down, and the softball park. The driver used my phone to take a photo for us:


It was pretty c-c-cold, so we were fair bundled up.

Next stop was the Empire State Building, which is once more, sadly, the tallest building in New York. There is an option to watch one of those films with moving seats as you take a virtual helicopter ride over the city, before you go up to the observation deck, but I wouldn't bother, if I was you. It's quite old as it still features the WTC Towers (which your virtual helicopter, ironically, nearly crashes into), which they claim they left in out of 'respect', but I think is was just too expensive to re-do the movie. Cynical? Me? The signage and guidance throughout the building is very poor, and we kept getting lost, despite a large number of staff, who appear only to be there to sell you add-ons to your visit. The ticketing is very complex: do you want to just go to the observation deck on the 86th floor, or do you want to go up the tower on the top as well; do you want to skip the observation deck and just go right to the top; do you want to see the movies; do you want a souvenir map, etc., etc. There were all sorts of combinations and the price list was a huge matrix. Totally confusing. Also, there are two lifts to take you to the top, and you have to get off one, and walk to the other one down the corridor and round the corner. There are queues to go either up or down, and they kept trying to put us into the wrong queue, both on the way up, and on the way down.

Not only that, but as we were coming down, a woman pulled us out of the line as we were walking towards the Gift Shop to claim our free souvenir tee-shirts, and put us in a lift that put us at street level, bypassing the shop! I think she thought she was helping me, seeing me walking with the stick, but she didn't ask; she just told us to go with her. I thought it was a security thing at first, because she started off by talking about a photo we hadn't had taken. Trying to get back to the gift shop meant going back through security, which was just like an airport's by the way, and it took us ages to get our shirts. We were going to give up at several points, but we had invested so much time by this point, we persued it to the end. And all because the woman didn't ask if I wanted help, but forced it on me, like someone seeing a blind man standing by the road and taking him across without checking first if that's what he wanted.

Despite all that, the view of a snow-covered NYC from the 86th floor was stunning. Here are just a few photos.

Iconic Manhattan


Somebody should be able to tell me what the building with the lit-up pyramid on top is. If you do know what it is, please post a comment using the link at the bottom of this post. Ta.


Snow covered rooftops down below. Tall buildings don't look very tall from up here.


The Chrysler Building, just a few blocks away - iconic architecture (slightly zoomed). Actually, the repeated use of the word 'iconic' is intentional. Dramatic effect, etc.


And, poignantly, a view south, where the twin towers would have dominated the far end of this island of Manhattan



Later that night we went to see the show, Curtains in which David Hyde Pierce plays a detective investigating a murder at a Boston theatre, where the leading lady in a western musical adaptation of Robin Hood (yes, really) is killed - fortunately, for she was sure to die on stage every night had the show gone on with her. The detective is star-struck, and an amateur dramatical himself, so is thrilled to be investigating a case in the theatre. I won't say any more in case it comes here, as there are more twists and turns in the plot than any who-dunnit fan could wish for. It's laugh-out-loud funny; the musical numbers are great (and I hate musicals, as a rule - I've never been confused!); the dancing is superb, and very demanding. It's not suitable for young youngsters, though, as there are a few swear words, quite a bit of sexual innuendo (of the comic sort), and the dancing does get quite raunchy from time to time. If you get the chance to see it, do.



Here is a blurry view of Times Square from ground level, snatched between the vehicles and people, as we made our way back to the hotel from the theatre


Sunday was a quiet day, spent wandering around the Lower East Side and SoHo. We found Katz's deli, where Meg Ryan had the best sandwich ever, apparently, in When Harry Met Sally. There is even a commemorative sign over the table where the scene was shot, saying 'Hope you get what Sally got', or something like that. It's a nice, quiet area of the city, with broad streets, and plenty of places to eat and drink, and just chill out. We were told that the pastrami sandwich was the thing to have in Katz's, so we had one of those ... each. Honestly, one would have been enough between us; about a pound of hot, thickly sliced, tender pastrami between two slices of rye bread. The complimentary pickles helped to cut the richness a little, as did the English style chips, but one half was more than enough for either of us. Maybe I should have asked for it thin sliced. I wonder if that would have made any difference ...



We wandered on to SoHo and found small craft fair going on where I bought Denise a pendant made from copper painted onto a leaf, which I've seen done before, and is very effective. Then we found a sports bar and watched the Six Nations Ireland vs Scotland match while we drank a couple of pints of Sierra Nevada beer: very nice they were too.

Then it was back to hotel to pick up our luggage, and head out in the cab for Newark airport. We got a couple of good views of the city as we left. Here's the Empire State from the back of the cab.


I have never eaten so much rich food in my life. I'd already spent a couple of days down in Newark, Delaware, while D was working, and we'd had huge meals with her colleagues in the evenings. You really couldn't face dinner after having eaten lunch, even if it was just a turkey salad sandwich. Again, about a pound of meat.

Our mealtimes were all over the shop all the time we were there, but it was quite an experience, and the only thing I regret is that I hadn't done it before I had lost my leg: it would have been so much more enjoyable if I'd been able to walk around all day without having to find places to stop and sit down all the time. I hope this didn't spoil it too much for Denise. She was very patient with me, I have to say. Bless her, eh?

4th February walk

Conditions: bright and dry, cold and breezy.

This is starting to become once every other day or once every three days. I have been out between the last post and this one but you wonldn't want me to be posting every time, would you? That'd be even more boring.

I decided to go at it a bit harder today, and was much quicker round. I didn't time it, but I was walking a heck of a lot faster. By the time I got home, I was puffing and blowing a bit, and my good leg was getting achey from the exertion.

I took this video the other day. Quite a contrast in conditions to today. A good reason not to be out walking!