Lockdown Diary - Saturday 6th February 2021

Shopping done, including picking up son #2's four month supply of folic acid tablets from the pharmacy, it's time to get on with the usual set of Saturday chores. 'Nuff said!

Eventually I find some time to read a bit from the papers after lunch but not much, partly because I'm struggling to settle but also because my mind is on other things.  

The phone rings just after lunch: it's my mother-in-law calling for a chat. I'm not sure how long we were on the phone for but it must have been at least an hour. She has a lot of time to think about things I guess and after the usual conversations about her grandsons and her daughter (who she spoke to, for a bit) she wanted to talk about the period of time before my wife's MS was diagnosed and, more to the point, the period after diagnosis as the disease started to affect her personality. After discussing how it affected her and their relationship, she suggested it must have been a difficult time for me, which she's not really done before, and whilst I didn't want to go into details (and won't here) I do have some painful memories of the time and remember thinking then that maybe something was changing in me (which in hindsight I don't think it was, though I have been changed by the experience), which prompted some dark nights of the soul.  People have such widely differing experiences of MS, it's almost as if it's a load of different diseases, not one.  The physical impacts are obvious, when they occur, but the mental ones are not - it's impossible to unpick the mental and personality impacts that are directly caused by the disease from those that are the result of the person's attempts to deal with the disease and how it is affecting them.  My wife tried to hide it, she hated people knowing she was ill, even when the effects were impossible to ignore externally, she tried to pretend they weren't happening and blame them on something or someone else. Was that the disease or was that her way of dealing with it or both? I will never know.  The only relevant thing is how we deal with it and how I look after her, now that she is fully dependent on other people for everything. 

After the call I needed a bit of a breather, just to clear the dark clouds from my mind.  I don't like to dwell on the past, but once stirred, some thoughts don't rest immediately.

Son #2 and I have planned to go for a walk and at around 3:30 p.m. we head off. We'd literally got to the road at the side of the house when we bumped into a friend walking her (their) new dog - she's a friend of the family and her children are friends with ours - she has a daughter the same age as the twins (they went to primary and secondary school together) and a son the same age as son #3.  We stop and have a catch up by which time my hernia starts playing up with its warning burning sensation, but nevertheless I'm determined we're going to walk, and we do.  A good 30 minutes of brisk walking later we're back in the warm. I'm glad we walked - I feel much better for it. Hopefully it's good for son #2s leg too though I guess the folic acid should gradually start to help over the coming weeks and months.

Amongst several seasonal things I'm working on, I'm trying to put together a playlist and this occupies my mind and ears until it's time to start the dinner. 

Film night again and son #1's choice. He's desperate for one of us to choose the film '1917' which he's seen but highly rates but he refuses to have it as his choice.  Instead he chooses 'Kill List' which was directed by Ben Wheatley (who directed my choice last week, 'A Field In England').

Wow! That was one crazy film. It seems to be a straightforward film about a pair of hitmen, their family lives and relationships, though early on there's a hint of something odd, but you file it away as it doesn't seem to be relevant, despite the oddness of the character who it involves.  There's some quite sadistic violence mid-film which, though in keeping with what's going on inside the head of one of the main characters, we all turned away from watching. I think that could have been implied rather than shown, and the film would have lost nothing for it, but that is just me. I am not a fan of watching someone inflict pain on another person, however evil they may be.  The direction that the story takes in the latter third is something else, but I'll not explain further. It is a good film and I 'enjoyed' it (not sure that quite matches the feelings it evoked), but the less you know about the story, other than the bare bones above, the more you will get out of it.

'If music be the food of love, play on': The White Stripes and 'Ball and Biscuit' from the album 'Elephant'

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