Again please, from the top this time....

The Photo that follows was taken by my wife - Sarah - (not her real name..) at her workplace this morning. Wellington harbour. 5th of May 2017 at around 11:00. Not a cloud in the sky, placid clear harbour waters and long shadows mask the icy icy cold temperature today. About 3 deg Centigrade. Those of you from Canada will laugh at that temperature as you get real professional-grade cold weather there not this excuse for cold weather. But there was frost around this morning and when the wind drifts by best you have a warm jacket and beanie on... The photo LOOKS great and it reminds me of probably what I look like too; ok'ish. Last week I had a rabid flu that finally took antibiotics to defeat it and one night I woke up unable to breathe at all. It was only after severely thrashing around in a panic that I managed to gasp in air. The next day someone called me and had to ask to speak to me while I battled to convince them that it was in fact me talking - or trying to talk. Anyway. M...

I spent most of my working-life pre-ms, in live entertainment and events and the working hours were very abnormal, so now in-spite of ms, or perhaps because of it I still find myself getting up after everyone has gone to bed and staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning (not every night…) So, at 01:30 I am listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis in the headphones while I write this and the icy rain is persistently lashing the quiet street outside… So, you may have noticed that this is a new blog-platform and a new format to my blogs. When I started out blogging, it was 100% due to an idea from Suburban co-working here in Wellington, who were mentoring me at the time. I was their student and the whole mentoring-thing was a brand new idea, a bit of an experiment too. The idea behind the blogging was in order to help sell my range of jewellery - tākiri  - and get moving my idea for creating a social-enterprise involving other disabled people. Well the jewellery and momentum fo...

Recently northern Australia got hammered by cyclone Debbie (what a ridiculously innocuous name for a bloody cyclone!) and when the remnants of that cyclone hit over here it produced some pretty severe damage and flooding. So when they announced recently that ANOTHER cyclone (cyclone Cook) was on its way, the entire country battened down the hatches and braced itself for imminent destruction. I tied down the barbecue and loose-stuff in the garden, plus got out torches/candles/duct-tape and checked the emergency supplies of water. Also I charged up my golf-cart and made sure that phones were likewise fully charged. By 19:00 last night my wife was home from work after having stocked up at the local supermarket on emergency supplies and we were locked down and waited….and waited.  Well this morning there is a bit of a wind and the sun keeps breaking through the clouds that scud about at high altitude but the expected torrential downpour never materialised not did the trees all sta...

I forgot to mention the swimming episode in my last blog. 3 days ago the 3 of us went to our local pool at around 09:00 in the morning. I went with my walker as the distance is around 500m to the entrance of the pool and I figured that it would be good for me to put some effort into getting there despite there being easier options available. After 20m of listening to me swear and curse, my wife suggested that she fetch my wheelchair or a helicopter. But I in the interests of a stiff-upper-lip and BACKBONE (whatever THAT is) insisted on persevering with the walker. So eventually we all made it to the pool where I discovered that if I had bought my golf-cart I could have driven right up to the edge of the water quite easily. Next time then. After 3 hours of really good fun with my wife and 7 year-old son in a heated pool (my son annoyingly does the Australian-crawl really well) we left. The result for me was pretty awesome – greatly increased feeling in both feet and legs, arms well...

Yesterday, my wife, son and I drove 50 something km up the scenic Akatarawa valley where there was nooooo cell-phone signal and the bush closed in on the 15km long single-lane twisty twisty road. But at the end of this road in an almost Alpine-like setting was Staglands –  http://www.staglands.co.nz Staglands is a privately owned park/nature reserve that is so very pretty and generally so ‘nice’ that the admirer quickly runs out of positive adjectives with which to describe the place. I got bored saying how awesome the view of green green bush was, and very tired of constantly and very unnecessarily bringing to everyones attention the pristine unpolluted aspect of the park and the bountiful friendliness of the people working there.  I took my wheelchair and smartdrive along too as I have become very enthusiastic about trying out the various attractions that our fair city holds-up as ‘disabled-friendly’. Previously I visited our exceptional national museum called the Te Pa...

Recently northern Australia got hammered by cyclone Debbie (what a ridiculously innocuous name for a bloody cyclone!) and when the remnants of that cyclone hit over here it produced some pretty severe damage and flooding. So when they announced recently that ANOTHER cyclone (cyclone Cook) was on its way, the entire country battened down the hatches and braced itself for imminent destruction. I tied down the barbecue and loose-stuff in the garden, plus got out torches/candles/duct-tape and checked the emergency supplies of water. Also I charged up my golf-cart and made sure that phones were likewise fully charged. By 19:00 last night my wife was home from work after having stocked up at the local supermarket on emergency supplies and we were locked down and waited….and waited.  Well this morning there is a bit of a wind and the sun keeps breaking through the streaky clouds that scud about at high altitude but the expected torrential downpour never materialised not did the trees...

The past few years since being diagnosed with MS have been the most disruptive and abominable of my entire life. But not only has this disease screwed entirely with my life alone, but also with the lives of my wife and son. When I compare them both prior to 2013 to what and how they are now, it is humbling to see how much they both have adapted to, accepted and incorporated my situation, THEIR situations and me – into their daily lives. Also my stellar wife (who shall remain nameless in this blog…) has had to cope with dealing with a possibly irreparably sick spouse, moving to a new country, and coping – encountering – overcoming and BEATING much opposition and negativity to her in the workplace, as she got the burden of being the main bread winner unceremoniously chucked at her to wear. I look at them lately with great great admiration as they both are very different (in a very positive way) to what they were a few years back… Someone asked me recently how I was doing and I laugh...