More progress today - enough movement in my knee to ride the Suzuki. Or, more accurately, sit on it a bit like a sack of spuds. Not entirely without discomfort, as it happens, but that's a whole lot better than just a couple of days ago.

On the subject of recovery, how's Mrs BD these days? Hopefully fighting fit by now?

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

As for Mrs BD, it's a bit of a mixed bag.  She has been signed off by the cardiologist, so the heart thing seems to have been successful.  The other complications (DVTs etc) seem to be under control, and are not getting any worse.  Unfortunately, she has recently had a scan of the whole spine, and her collapsing vertebrae are continuing to collapse.  She has lost about 3" in height, and I keep calling her 'Titch' and asking her to stand up, but the joke is wearing thin.  She may well have to have an operation to stabilise it all.  She's not very happy about that, but I keep telling her that she has been lucky so far (no damage to the spinal cord, hence no real disability) and we should take all steps to keep it that way.

The good thing is that over the last few weeks she has really brightened up and sounds like her old self again.  It's been like having my proper wife back, only shorter

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2003 ST1300 Pan Euro
1995 Yam XT600E
http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/

Good to hear that the cardiology's sorted, let's hope that they can do something helpful with the osteo side of things.

Must be the season for it - nothing like as serious, but my good lady is booked in for a shoulder op on Friday, which only leaves me a few days to practise both sympathy and helpfulness. I say "practise" in the sense of "learn, and quickly" for she hath a ferocious temper when roused...luckily her left hook's nowhere near as good as her right! I jest, well, a little anyway - and it's bad timing that she'll be confined at home in a one-armed fashion while I'll be out all week running a theatre and hence not able to give quite the expected levels of care and attention. I'm guessing I may have to be particularly useful when I am home, and refrain from poking too much fun on the subject!

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

Should be okay, except that she's forbidden to drive for the duration. That means I may even have to take the wheel of her car and do chauffering - a very trusting move, since on the couple of times a year I do drive, I have occasionally been known to overlook that cars are actually wider than my elbows. And I can't use the driving mirror: wing mirrors only. It's quite disturbing to try a lifesaver, too!

Since my finances are shot anyway, and I'm still not vastly mobile, I spent the weekend cheering myself up by diligently searching the internet for some bargain bin specials to finally plug some holes in my CD collection. Amazing to think that you can buy a disk made in Britain, then shipped to America and back for something like $4 with free p&p. Or you could cough up £15 for the same disk in HMV. No wonder the high streets are crippled and the environment is, allegedly, broken. Anyway, selfishly non-green of me or not, a nice shiny stack of Iron Butterfly, Mountain and Colosseum albums should be dropping through the front door soon. Nothing to do with motorcycles per se, obviously, although I believe all of them numbered bikers amongst their membership. And I love IB's "Easy Rider". Nearly as good as Saracen's "Ride Shotgun With The Wind" as a motorcycle hymn - 'And as your machine turns air and fuel into motion/Remember: the earth may not be flat, but you can still find the edge!' Lovely.

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

It's an odd thing, being in a car - I actually feel far more vulnerable and less in control than I ever do on a bike. I hate the lack of all-round vision, the deadening of outside sounds, the feeble and slow response to control inputs, the need to follow in line and the sheer lack of interest generated by the whole experience. Every time I do it, I take a certain amount of sympathy away with me, and a resolve to be more understanding of other road users. Often, it's not that they're deliberately impeding my two-wheeled progress, it's that - with the best will in the world - they can't get much more out of their vehicle and, no doubt in many cases, have ceased to even bother trying.

Partly, I suspect, it's because I've never owned a good car, so wouldn't have a clue whether there's more enjoyment to be had; mainly it's that, for road-going purposes, the limitless speed, acceleration and power of a bike spoils one rather. Maybe if I was confined to a cage for any length of time, I could recalibrate my brain to work slower and hence find it all less frustrating...but I reckon I'd still hate it!

>> ex silens nox noctis <<