I have tried several times to complete a post in my established style on this blog. Have you seen the results? Obviously I have not been successful. So I thought I might try a different format that is a little shorter. Why shorter? One of the problems that has developed over the last sixteen months is the loss of some use of my right hand. There is still no diagnosis but the name for the set of symptoms is Ataxia. It consists of three common symptoms 1) Loss (or partial loss) of use of a limb 2) problems with balance 3) speech/memory problems. It is usually caused by a stroke or a head injury, neither of which I have experienced, or disease which has not been identified. While I await seeing more specialists in addition to the two I’ve seen, I have begun physiotherapy and occupational for the right hand and balance, and will seek more adaptive measures if necessary. Once I have those under control I’ll see a speech therapist, but I’ve decided to wait on that one until the other two are underway. The recent year has been huge for us and very challenging, so I don’t want to ‘over’ overwhelm my already ‘whelmed’ self!

The transition from rural frontier to city life has been flowing along these 5 months since leaving Alice Springs. It seems boring for me to write about how we had to visit the bank in person twice to get them to change our residential address correctly. Or to describe how easily our driving licences were changed over, even tho I will not be using mine. And the story of how I got lost walking to a doctor’s appointment even though Don and I had already done the walk once, is one I won’t forget but you needn’t worry over. It has nothing to do with my current physical problems and everything to do with me being born without any sense of direction whatever.

Each week, indeed, each day, unfolds with small delightful surprises as well as some aforementioned challenges. I thought I might try to record a few per week to write about. Part of my therapy is to practice writing, so I will record what I can in longhand and since typing is also a slow struggle I’ll see how we go from there.

The first five things…

1. There is a lovely young lady, probably high school or university student, who works at my favourite IGA. She always greets me like she is happy to see me and she usually gets me talking because she asks questions. Recently she asked what I was going to use the bunch of parsley for that I was buying. I answered ‘chicken noodle soup’. She looked at me enquiringly and said I’ve never tried making that. I responded that it was easy and rattled off my recipe in about 20-30 seconds. And she seemed to appreciate it. She helped put the parsley in my bag (my right hand doesn’t work so well and my left hand was holding my phone from payment). As I turned to wish her a nice day I noticed two other people in line smiling patiently at the ‘old lady’ telling the young one how to make chicken soup. I’ve become an old lady, I guess, but there are worse things.

2. This morning on my walk I took this photo of the pigeons from the ground that I watch every morning from our balcony as the sun comes up and the warm rays hit the peak of this 100 year old church roof. They have a delightful way of greeting the days in a flock, sweeping over a small part pf the neighbourhood. Each circuit a few pigeons from the roof fly up to join the flock and a few leave the flock to rest on the peak of the roof and enjoy the golden light.

3. Fig season has apparently started. I say apparently because coming from the Northern Hemisphere 42 years ago still has me confused about when seasons occur for which fruits and vegetables. Maybe I will learn more now we live across the street from the Central Markets with over 70 stalls! I might have eaten a whole box of figs in three days this week. I’m only human.

4. It was a very, very big deal this week that I discovered my very own shortcut to my favourite walk destination on South Terrace. (See above ‘born with NO sense of direction’) It honestly boosted my self confidence hugely as I continue to learn the city.

5. Imagine my surprise last week when I decided to try painting left handed and it went well. Exceedingly well. I had tried sharing the task between both hands but that felt limiting. So in the spur of a moment I just started a new painting with my left hand and kept going. It took three one hour sessions on subsequent days to get a result, but when I did, it was quite a thrill. Let’s have three cheers for neuroplasticity!