The big 4-0

It was my birthday last week. I am now officially very old ;-). It's slowly sinking in that to my kids I must seem really old - I can remember my mum and dad's 40th birthdays really clearly; I must have been about 8-9, I can remember at the time getting older seemed an almost infinite way off. It's now here :-/.

The weird thing is in many ways I feel healthier than I did in my twenties - I do more regular exercise, I drink much less and I get more sleep (when the kids allow ;-)) I've not been an inpatient at the CF Ward since I was 26. And for that I've got to thank my brilliant wife for getting me away from drink and excess and into fell walking and fitness when I met her in my twenties. God knows where I'd be if I was single and still trying to follow the Jim Morrison rock star model of excess; I'd probably weight about 8 stone and be falling asleep in my own urine in a pub somewhere. As it is that's at least another year off...;-)

Anyhow, I can't get too complacent because although my CF at the moment seems under control (touch wood about 10 times) I know myotonic (muscular) distrophy may raise it's ugly head at some point. I have two genetic diseases for the price of one ;-) Mytonic Dystrophy is a late onset disease but it varies considerably so there is no way of knowing just when and to what degree it will effect me, so far so good but I've recently noticed my neck seems to be aching a lot when I wear a bicycle helmet on long bike rides - and I'm also struggling to chew roast lamb and roast beef fast unless it's really tender - maybe I'm losing some muscle tone in my head / neck before anything else? Otherwise I seem to be OK (touches wood another 100 times) although I feel I should probably join a gym to maybe build up my muscles a bit more.

Ebay a go go!

I've started to put some of my dad's stuff on Ebay, I don't think we'll get much for it all but it's nice to know somebody will be able to use some of the stuff; especially his electric riser/recliner chair which I really hope somebody disabled will be able to use. Seeing some of his old stuff doesn't half bring back memories; he used to play D&D (dungeons and dragons) in the sports and social club at Phillips Hazel Grove. It's got something of a geeky reputation now but back in the day (before computers) it was popular in a cult way, there was at least as many women as men playing it in the group, at it's peak there were about 16 in the D&D group (AORTA: Association of reasonably trustworthy adventurers ;-)). We played it as a family too; my dad had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to my sister and myself when we were children and it really fired our imaginations, with D&D my dad as Dungeon Master would create a world similar to that in Lord of the Rings and we as characters in that world would have to negotiate our way through dangerous adventures...memories...

I've also got my mates to help out demolishing a rotten wooden outhouse and tidying up the garden, unfortunately there was so much thick ivy branches growing in the garden that taking down the ivy has demolished the fence! So now we need a new fence. We'll get there, hopefully by the end of the month because I could really do with putting the (emptied) house on the market so I can relax and forget about it. I'm not expecting it to sell straight away but at least if it's on the market there's a chance!

My sister has been working on the interior, it's not gone smoothly! The idiot she got in to do the decorating ending up giving the curtains away to a charity, so now everyone can look into the house and see it's empty. He also threw out the recycling schedule so now I don't know when to put the bins out! And he didn't actually finish the decorating job!!! Some people...