Secret Stories

I really don't feel like writing this weekend so I’m sorry if this week’s blog is dull.  It has been a very busy week with preparations for the exhibition and work on the Reform Club event.  First things first, my body has played up badly this week with falling for the first time in the shower, which was a bit nerve wracking for Liz and me.  It means I can no longer shower when there is no one around just in case.  It is yet another nail in the coffin.  I have also gone off my food recently and have already lost quite a lot of weight; I yearn for tasty morsels that are easy to eat and to drink a pint of beer without thinking of the consequences!  As they say what goes in must come out and it does unpredictably, which is another progressive loss of control.  However, my health problems seemed quite insignificant when I received a note from a very long standing colleague and friend;

I am so sorry to hear your news – but you sound very courageous. It is vitally important to keep ones spirits up as I know personally, having had two cousins die far too early  due to illnesses.          

I am afraid that I won’t able to come [to the Reform Club event] due to my own state of health which has been rough, but nothing like as rough as yours , over the last two years. One thing seems to have followed another. I contracted MRSA in hospital when I gave a kidney to another cousin, who would have died without a transplant. I was then diagnosed with cancer, which I hope has been eradicated after treatment. This was followed by unexplained back spasms over an extended period and now I have a problem walking which I hope may be treated through the NHS taking a mould of one of my feet and making a support – tiresome , but hardly more than that, but going to large gatherings , exhibitions and walking any distance are out for the time being. My back completely seizes up if I stand in one place for more than a very short length of time – nor can I sit for very ...  Long without problems with my foot! But although I am frustrated, I have a strong belief that things will improve!

We can't even hope that things will improve because we know they will not get better.  We are in the business of managing decline in a gentlemanly fashion.  I feel privileged to be able to share a little bit of this person’s life which would not normally happen in the daily cut and thrust of life. I'm sure that there are plenty more where that came from and ones we don't know about very near home.

Enough of that, it was quite traumatic on Wednesday, when our pots were taken away to the Museum for the exhibition.  They took away about 40 of them collected over 25 years – Liz managed to keep back a few on the grounds that she bought them with her own money. Nevertheless, our house now looks very empty, but I'm looking forward to seeing the pots in a new environment.  I never thought I would have a collection worth exhibiting as I started out simply wanting to support creative people in Yorkshire!  The exhibition runs from 19th January 2012 until 7th May 2012 and is called Contemporary Ceramics: Personal Collection, so you have plenty of time to see it and paste your comments.

The Reform Club event on 9 February 2012, starting at 6.30pm, is not attracting enough people.  We need sixty and at the moment we have about twenty positive responses.  The event is a networking opportunity to hear about MSA, from one of the leading specialists in the autonomic nervous system, and a little bit about my book, the royalties from which are going to support research in this field.  If you can help or want to come or send a rep. call me on 07810 200202 or email me simon@croodhouse.freeserve.co.uk